In April 2009, British atheist A.N. Wilson shocked the world by announcing that he was returning to the faith. When asked later in an interview what was the worst thing about being faithless, the writer and newspaper columnist said:

“When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own…. The Resurrection, which proclaims that matter and spirit are mysteriously conjoined, is the ultimate key to who we are. It confronts us with an extraordinarily haunting story. J. S. Bach believed the story, and set it to music.”

A.N. Wilson is not alone. In his Introduction to the book Does God Exist, Peter Kreeft noted that he personally knew three ex-atheists who were swayed by the argument “There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God.” Two of these ex-atheists, Kreeft informs us, are now philosophy professors and one is a monk.

Even the God-hater Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), upon hearing a performance of the St. Matthew Passion, was compelled to admit that “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel.”

Bach would certainly approve, for he once remarked that “Music’s only purpose should be the glory of God and the refreshment of the human spirit.” To underscore this, he wrote the initials SDG (Soli Deo Gloria) at the end of most of his scores.

But who was this man whose music reaches down through time to touch people in such powerful ways?

To answer this question, we must travel back in time to the early 17th century, where, in the Saxon province of Thuringia (modern day Germany), there lived a miller by the name of Veit.

There Once Was a Miller

Native to Hungary, Veit had fled to Germany to escape persecutions against him and his fellow Lutherans. In the Protestant protectorate in the heart of Germany, Veit found the environment he sought for raising his son in accordance with Lutheran principles. Defended by the Elector of Saxony, this was the same state that had offered Luther a safe haven following the judgement against him at the Diet of Worms.

Next to his faith and family, Veit’s greatest joy came from making music on a little cittern, an ancient predecessor to the mandolin. Although his work as a miller was demanding, Veit did find time to play on the instrument when the flour was grinding.

Veit died in 1619, but not before passing on both his love of music and his strong faith to his son Johannes Bach. The love of music and the love of Christ lived on in the generations that followed. Indeed, towards the close of the 17th century, Veit’s many descendants dominated the German musical scene. Eventually over seventy Bachs occupied posts as professional musicians in the surrounding area. In fact, the word “Bach” even became a synonymous term for musician in that region.

The Musical Bachs

Veit Bach was the great, great grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was probably the most renown composer history has ever known. As a child, Johann Sebastian recalled hearing his father recount with pride the accomplishments of their remote ancestor, who, it was believed, had brought both music and Lutheranism to the family.

Johann Sebastian was not only born into a family of musicians: he was born into a family of Johann’s. His parents, Johann Ambrosius and Elisabetha, had seven sons and they named them all Johann (the penchant for the name seems to have been almost as much of a family tradition as music: all of Ambrosius twin brother’s four sons were also named Johann!).

Johann senior occupied the position of Stadtpfeifer or town musician for the Eisenach council. This meant that he was responsible for providing daily music for the town’s market, as well as playing for special civic and ecclesiastical functions.

Sebastian (as he was called to distinguish him from his brothers) learned two things from his father which helped to define the person he later became. First, his father’s example taught him the importance of caring for others, especially relatives, who were in need. His father looked after his handicapped younger sister, his wife’s widowed mother, the son of a cousin who had died in the plague as well as the orphaned son of another cousin.

Sebastian also learned from his father the love of music. He was taught this in the best possible way: enculturation. By being saturated in what was good, true and beautiful from an early age, he learned to appreciate and enjoy fine art long before he could understand it.

Life changed dramatically for nine-year-old Sebastian in May 1694 when his mother died suddenly. In February of the following year his father died, leaving Sebastian an orphan.

His older brother, Johann Christoph (1671–1721), had recently married and settled down in the town of Ohrdruf. Christoph invited Sebastian to come and live with him and his wife and raised him as his own.

Moonlight and Music

Sebastian continued his musical studies with his brother, who was an accomplished musician and held the post of organist at St. Michael’s Church in Ohrdruf. By his early teens Sebastian had positively devoured all the music that he had been shown and was hungry for more.

It was not just the joy of playing music that spurred Sebastian to lay his hands on all the music he could find. In every piece he surveyed, the boy learned something more concerning the techniques of harmony, counterpoint, form, genre and invention. Even when he had grown to be a fully mature composer in his own right, he retained the insatiable curiosity to analyze other people’s works and incorporate their ideas into his own.

Christoph had studied under Pachelbel (1653 – 1706) and owned a volume of music he had obtained from him. When Sebastian asked his brother for permission to play from this volume, he refused. Probably this was because the value of the music depended on its scarcity and Christoph feared lest any copies be made and circulated.

One night when he had made sure that his brother and his wife had gone to bed, Sebastian sneaked into the room where the volume was locked in a cabinet. Because the doors of the cabinet were made of grillwork, Sebastian found he was able to pass his small hands through the openings and touch the coveted manuscript. As the parchment was too large to fit through the holes in the grillwork, Sebastian rolled it into a coil until it was small enough to carefully extract through the small holes.

Once he held the music in his hands, Sebastian faced a new problem: how was he to copy the music without his brother knowing? Not being allowed to carry his own candle, Sebastian was forced to copy the book entirely by moonlight. Since he was only able to work when the moon was full, it took Sebastian six months to copy all of the music.

Despite all his precautions, his brother once came upon him playing from the copy he had made. Furious, Christoph punished Sebastian and took away the music.

From Lüneburg to Leipzig

By the time Bach was fifteen, he was an accomplished soprano, violinist and composer, as well as being proficient in all the keyboard instruments of the day, including the organ. He had also excelled in his academic studies, including Latin and theology.

At his age, all his brothers had already left school to pursue positions in music. Sebastian could easily have followed this pattern but was eager for more schooling. Through the help of his choral instructor, Bach was able to secure a scholarship to continue his education at St. Michael’s School in Lüneburg.

Although the music library at Lüneburg had at least eleven hundred volumes, Sebastian’s hunger for more music could not be quenched. During his time at Lüneburg he would often walk 30 miles on foot to hear the organist John Reinken in Hamburg, before turning around and walking 30 miles back. Perhaps because of his excursions (which placed a strain on Bach’s finances), and also because the scholarship didn’t cover all the expenses, Sebastian was forced to terminate his formal education in 1702.

In the period that followed, Bach occupied a succession of musical posts: violinist in the small chamber orchestra of Duke Johann Ernst, of Weimar, church organist for the town of Arnstadt, church organist for the town of Mühlhausen (during which time he married his cousin Maria Barbara), return to Weimar as member of the chamber orchestra and Organist to the Court and, finally, Capellmeister for the court of prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen.

A Capellmeister was the highest rank a musician could achieve during the baroque period. This meant that Bach was in charge of all the music at prince Leopold’s court. Leopold was himself an enthusiastic musician and hand picked the finest musicians to work for him. He and Bach struck up a close friendship and enjoyed many hours making music together.

Despite the absence of an organ at the Cöthen, these were happy days for Bach. He had plenty of time to compose, competent musicians to test out his pieces on and a growing family. Moreover, Bach was given invaluable opportunities to tour new places, for whenever Prince Leopold traveled around Europe, he would take his musicians with him.

Returning from one of the Prince’s tours, Bach received heartbreaking news: his beloved wife, Maria Barbara, had died, leaving their four children motherless.

The following year, when he was thirty-six, Bach met 20-year old Anna Magdalena, a court singer. Needing a wife to help with his children, Bach proposed to Anna and she accepted. The marriage proved to be a great source of happiness to Bach, and also a blessing to his children, whom Anna loved as her own.

Within a week of Bach’s wedding, Prince Leopold also married. Unfortunately for Bach, the new Princess took little interest in music and also discouraged Leopold from his musical activities. This, together with Bach’s desire to live near a good Lutheran school that his children could attend, compelled Bach to once again look for a new position.

The opportunity presented itself when the post of cantor to the town of Leipzig became vacated. Bach applied for the position and was accepted. In 1723 he moved his wife and children (now ages eight, nine, twelve and fourteen) to the city where he would remain the rest of his life.

The Faithful Cantor

Bach had many duties as musical director for all of Leipzig. He had to organize (though not necessarily compose) weekly music for the cities four main churches, as well as special music for ceremonial occasions. His job also required him to give private lessons in singing and instrumental performance, to teach Latin (a duty he delegated) and to serve as hall monitor for the school one week every month, calling boys to morning prayer, supervising meals and enforcing curfew.

The transition from the easy life at court, where he could compose and make music as he liked, to the strenuous and demanding responsibilities of a town cantor must have been quite a challenge for a creative genius like Bach. Yet he embraced his duties with characteristic faithfulness, seeking to fulfil the needs of his employers to the best of his ability. This was not always easy, for Bach was frequently frustrated from doing his job by the petty bureaucracy of the town council.

The controversies with the municipal authorities were sometimes ideological, as many city officials wished to modernize the city (and its music) according to Enlightenment principles. The modernists believed Bach was clinging to obsolete forms of music. Other looked upon Bach as a regretful necessity, as their first choice of town cantor, Telemann, had not been available for the post. They kept Bach on a meagre salary, barely sufficient to meet the needs of his growing family. Throughout the rest of his life Bach had to deal with personal attack, including a series of newspaper articles written against him.

Despite the lack of support from his own employers, Bach composed some of his most splendid music in Leipzig. During the first 5 years he went through a frantic period of composing hundreds of sacred Cantatas, even though this was not required by his job description and despite the fact that the Leipzig authorities were not always supportive of the project. The cantatas were multi-movement works, sung by a choir and solo voices, to be used in worship on Sunday morning or feast days. They incorporated both the Gospel reading for the day as well as the Lutheran hymn, which formed thematic background to the entire work. By the time he finished, he had given the church years worth of Cantatas to be used and reused according to the liturgical cycle.

The Faithful Teacher

During the twenty-seven years he spent in Leipzig, Bach taught between sixty to a hundred students. In fact, he seems to have spent almost as much time training the next generation of musicians as he did composing. Many of these students became close personal friends with the Bach family and even lived in their home over the years. Bach’s method of teaching is described in Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life and Writings, adapted from the German of Hilgenfeldt and Forkel. The authors explain that

…as long as his scholars were under his musical direction, he did not allow them to study or become acquainted (besides-his own compositions) with any but classical works. The understanding, by which alone what is really good is apprehended, develops itself later than the feeling, not to mention that even this may be misled and spoiled by being frequently engaged on inferior productions of art. The best method of instructing youth, therefore, is to accustom them to what is excellent. The right understanding of it follows in time, and can then still farther confirm their attachment to none but genuine works of art.

Later Life and Death

In Leipzig, Anna bore Bach 13 more children, although many of these died. Those that survived gave father Bach much joy. In his later years, Bach withdrew as much as possible from public life, finding fulfilment in his faith, family and music.

Also during his later years, Bach experimented with perfecting various musical forms as well as reworking a number of his earlier compositions in light of his increased musical knowledge. These works have been terms his summation works and have been described by Greg Wilbur as “compositions of such beauty, erudition, achievement and comprehensiveness that they approach musical perfection and rival any intellectual accomplishment in the history of man.”

By the time Bach died on July 28, 1750, he left behind a collection of compositions of staggering in its proportions. It has been said that it would take a present-day copyist seventy years just to copy out all the pieces and parts that Bach wrote, and yet Bach composed this music while fulfilling many other duties.

Unfortunately, after his death the Leipzig authorities decided to defraud Anna of her rightful inheritance. Many of Bach’s unpublished manuscripts were sold, while some were even reportedly used to wrap garbage in.

The Neglect and Rediscovery of Bach

Though Bach’s music was admired by his students and musicians throughout Europe, his music never achieved the following of other baroque composers like Vivaldi, Telemann and Handel. In Leipzig he was remembered more as an organ virtuoso than a great composer.

Significantly, Bach’s death in 1750 marked the end of the Baroque period and the beginning of the classical era. Instead of the elaborate, complex and often dissonant music of composers like Bach, people began to prefer the simplicity and classical elegance of composers like Mozart. Consequently, Bach’s music began to fall into disuse and much of it, especially the vocal works, were forgotten.
Although individual composers (including Mozart and Beethoven) were still greatly influenced by him, it was not until Felix Mendelssohn (1809 –1847) staged a performance of the St. Matthew’s Passion that Bach music was once again appreciated by a wider audience. This jump-started an enormous interest in Bach studies and a search to recover and publish as much of his music as possible. Unfortunately, by then much of his music, including around 100 cantatas, had either been lost or destroyed. What remains today is only a subset of his total output.

The Legacy of J.S. Bach

It is impossible in a few words to even begin to describe the musical legacy left to us by Bach. One of the reasons for this is that his music is incredibly varied and defies categorization. From works that reach dizzying heights of mathematical complexity (The Art of Fugue) to lush melodies like his “Air on the G String”, to works such as the Chromatic Fantasy that almost approach jazz in its dissonance, his music is impossible to categorize. Though his music is sometimes caricatured as being dry and academic, his compositions actually explore the full range of human emotions from deep sadness (Passacaglia and Fugue for organ in C minor) to playful joy (Brandenburg concertos).

But by far Bach’s greatest legacy was in writing Sunday morning worship music. “His conscious life-long purpose” wrote Dickinson in Music in the History of the Western Church, “was to enrich the musical treasury of the Church he loved, to strengthen and signalize every feature of her worship which his genius could reach: and to this lofty aim he devoted an intellectual force and an energy of loyal enthusiasm unsurpassed in the annals of art.”

The theological underpinning behind his church music seems to be 1 Chronicles 25, where David and the captains of his army separate out certain individuals for praising God through music. In the marginal notes of his Calov Bible commentary (a Bible commentary drawn from Luther’s writings which Bach used to help him study scripture), Bach commented that 1 Chronicles 25 formed “the true foundation of all God-pleasing music.”

“At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence”, Bach once observed. In Bach’s church music, one can feel that gracious presence. This is especially true of the music he composed for the Passion narratives of Matthew and John. The St Matthew Passion centers mainly on the sacrificial nature of Christ’s death. In this dark, but rich musical setting, the agony of Christ is almost palpable.

Bach’s work with the passion narratives emerged out of the extreme importance he attached to the finished work of Christ on the cross. It is no coincidence that in his Bible Commentary, Bach underlined Luther’s comments on John 19:30, where the reformer remarked “that Christ’s suffering is the fulfilment of Scripture and the accomplishment of the redemption of the human race.” Bach clung to this redemption, which gave him a quiet confidence in God in the midst of his life’s many difficulties.

Even though his genius reached the pinnacle of perfection in his church music, Bach is remembered today mainly for his instrumental works. Yet even these compositions preach to us and are a musical expression of Trinitarian dynamism. He was able, like no other composer before or since, to present a number of independent melodies, all complete in themselves, but which weave together to form a single texture that is itself complete without compromising the diversity of the parts.

Lessons from the Life of J.S. Bach

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell asks what makes some people so successful. The usual answer has been that it is all down to a combination of innate talent and hard work. While both of these factors play an important role, Gladwell argues convincingly that the ingredients which separate the genius from the ordinary person have more to do with the family, heritage and community in which a person grows up.

No where is this more evident than in the life of J.S. Bach. One of the reasons that the
Bach clan was able to become so influential in 18th century Germany is because they looked after each other through an informal network of mutual support, loyalty and love. Uncles took on nephews as apprentices, widows were supported by in-laws while relatives took in one another’s children when disaster struck, as it often did in an age of high mortality. Always on the look out for ways to assist each other, the older Bachs used their influence to help the younger relatives secure lucrative jobs, while each was careful to pass on to the next generation the musical knowledge he had acquired during his life.

The first lesson that Bach’s life teaches us, therefore, is the importance of culture. Geniuses like Bach do not arise out of a vacuum but are the product of years, often centuries, of collective input from dozens of individuals. Most of these individuals will probably be unaware of the heritage they are contributing to, yet their collective efforts help to foster and sustain a culture in which greatness can thrive. Sometimes this can be the culture of a family (Ambrosius Bach’s family before his death in 1695), the culture of an extended family (the Bach clan), the culture of a nation (Protestant Germany in the early 18th century) or the culture of an entire civilization (Christendom). When there is a confluence of these types of cultures, as their was in Bach’s case, and all are favourable to industry, rationality and creativity, then the opportunities for greatness are increased.

These types of cultures take many years to be built up. The network of charity, self-giving and musical enjoyment that characterized the culture into which Bach was born, began to be built five generations earlier with Veit.

The life of Veit Bach, no less than J.S. Bach, shows us that faithfulness in the small things, particularly when it comes to investing in posterity, can leave a generational footprint beyond reckoning.

J.S. Bach realized this. He understood the importance of having a long-term generational vision, for he invested an enormous amount of energy in his own children. “What is amazing,” wrote Bettmann in his book Bach, “is the zeal and endless devotion with which he devoted himself to the upbringing of his children, musically and otherwise.” Bach viewed his work with his family as essentially no different to his music, believing that God calls a man to faithfulness in whatever sphere he finds himself. Significantly, in his Calov Bible commentary, he underlined Luther’s comments on Psalm 127:2, where Luther had written that we should pray, “Lord, I accept my calling and do what you have commanded, and will in all my work surely do what You will have done; only help me to govern my home, help me to regulate my affairs, etc.”

Bach’s work preparing the next generation was not limited to his family. No other composer taught so many students who themselves went on to become great composers. In fact, one of the reasons that Bach is remembered today as such a great composer is because he was such a devoted teacher. Were it not for his students, who disseminated copies of his music throughout Europe, much of Bach’s solo keyboard work would now be lost.

The final lesson that we learn from Bach is the importance of humility. Bach’s first biographer, Johann Forkel (1749-1818), wrote that

If he had thought fit to travel, he would (as even one of his enemies has said) have drawn upon himself the admiration of the whole world. But he loved a quiet domestic life, constant and uninterrupted occupation with his art, and was…a man of few wants.

Bach never thought of himself as a great genius and would frequently downplay his ability, which he put down more to hard work than innate talent. Moreover, he was incredibly gracious and polite to other composers whose music was clearly inferior to his own. When asked by someone how he had mastered music to such a high degree, he replied: “I was obliged to be industrious; whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.”

Postscript

Nearly a hundred years after his death a monument was constructed in Leipzig in memory of Bach. Before the unveiling ceremony, Mendelssohn tried to locate some of Bach’s descendents. He followed every trace but found nothing.

Despite the strength of the Bach clan during the 18th century, it is not surprising that by the 19th century they had all disappeared. After Bach’s death, the cultural landscape of Europe underwent a dramatic shift. As the church and the aristocracy (Europe’s two largest music patrons) both declined, the types of positions that had formerly been filled by musical Bachs became obsolete. As a consequence, the Bach clan ceased to remain intact and in 1843 Mendelssohn could find no remaining Bachs to honor at the ceremony.

On the day of the ceremony, however, a curious old man of eighty-four, still full of energy, hobbled into sight seemingly out of nowhere. He claimed to be the grandson of J.S. Bach.

“No one knew of his existence,” wrote the composer Robert Schumann, “not even Mendelssohn, who had lived so long in Berlin and, he supposed, had followed every trace of Bach he could discover. Yet his grandson had resided there for over forty years.”

Schumann explained that no information could be obtained about this mysterious figure. However, upon investigation, it was discovered that he was not only a musician, but “had filled the office of Capellmeister to the consort of Friedrich Wilhelm III, and enjoys a pension which maintains him in comfort.”

This lone figure, apparently the last in Veit’s long line of musical descendents, was himself a stark reminder of the way Johann Sebastian, like his ancestor, had taken care to pass on his love of music to the next generation.

Questions for Reflection

If you are a fan of Alfred the Great Society on facebook, watch for the online discussions concerning the following questions raised by the life of J.S. Bach:

Because his Lutheran theology, Bach did not recognize the distinction between the sacred and the secular but believed that all things should be done for the glory of God. He was just as comfortable writing non-religious music as church music. What can we learn from this in our own approach to music?

What are some ways parents pass on to their children a love for what is beautiful?

During most of his career, Bach was employed by the city council of Leipzig. Is it right that a city should take tax-payers money and use it to support the arts? Should our government do that?

Is it possible, or preferable, for extended families today to try to remain as intact as the Bach clan?

Peter Kreeft refers to ex-atheists who were converted by the argument, “There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God.” Is this a legitimate argument?

Right up to the end of his life Bach was hungry to learn from other composers and incorporate their ideas into his own works. Beethoven, on the other hand, would often intentionally avoid studying other compositions so as not to pollute his own originality. Is either approach better?

Is Bach’s music objectively beautiful, or is beauty just a matter of personal taste?

If Bach had promoted himself more, he might have been more widely appreciated and, consequently, much of his music would not have been lost. Should he have done more to “toot his own horn”?

When writing church music, Bach beautified tunes and conventions that were already part of the larger culture, even as Luther had done for his generation. Is this something church musicians should still strive to do?

Discuss the quotation about Bach’s teaching methods. How might his approach to musical education apply to other subjects, including literature, visual art and the appreciation of movies?

How does a person who has achieved greatness remain humble?

Towards the end of Bach’s life, the aristocracy and the church (Europe’s two main music patrons) were in decline. As a consequence, composers had to write music that was more directly accessible to a commercial audience. How might this have affected musical style?

How does Bach’s music display the glories of the blessed Trinity?

How does the music of your own church compare to the type of Sunday morning worship music that Bach strove to promote? Is there anything we can learn from Bach’s approach to worship?

Why is training the next generation so important?

Can a person grow closer to God by learning to enjoy good quality music?

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