Johann Sebastian Bach Quotes

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.

I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.

If I decide to be an idiot, then I’ll be an idiot on my own accord.

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

Harmony is next to Godliness

Soli Deo Gloria

Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.

I have always kept one end in view, namely ... to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honour of God.

The aim and final reason of all music should be none else but the glory of God and refreshing the soul. Where this is not observed there will be no music, but only a devilish hubbub.

Not "brook" [in German: Bach], but "sea" should he [Johann Sebastian Bach] be called because of his infinite, inexhaustible richness in tone combinations and harmonies. (Nicht Bach! Meer sollte er heissen: wegen seines unendlichen, unerschoepflichen Reichtums an Tonkombinationen und Harmonien.)

Not all musicians believe in God, but they all believe in Johann Sebastian Bach

Music is a mixed mathematical science that concerns the origens, attributes, and distinctions of sound, out of which a cultivated and lovely melody and harmony are made, so that God is honored and praised but mankind is moved to devotion, virtue, joy, and sorrow.

¡Oh, cómo me gusta el café azucarado! Es más agradable que mil besos, más dulce que el vino moscatel. Café, café, te necesito, y si alguien quiere confortarme ¡oh, que me sirva café! Aria de Cantata del Café, de Johann Sebastian Bach

Tobe, Welt, und springe; ich steh' hier und singe in gar sichrer Ruh'.

Many people remember that when in 1977 the Voyager spacecraft was launched, opinions were canvassed as to what artefacts would be most appropriate to leave in outer space as a signal of man's cultural achievements on earth. The American astronomer Carl Sagan proposed that 'if we are to convey something of what humans are about then music has to be a part of it.' To Sagan's request for suggestions, the eminent biologist Lewis Thomas answered, 'I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.' After a pause, he added, 'But that would be boasting.

Quaerendo invenietis

Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure; Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure. Thou dost ever lead Thine own In the love of joys unknown.

O große Lieb, o Lieb ohn alle Maße, Die dich gebracht auf diese Marterstraße! Ich lebte mit der Welt in Lust und Freuden, Und du mußt leiden. O great love, o love beyond measure, that brought You to this path of martyrdom! I lived with the world in delight and joy, and You had to suffer. BWV 245 - "Johannes-Passion" Oratorio for Good Friday, 3. Chorale.

Michelangelo is celebrated for the Sistine Chapel; in fact, he supervised a dozen unacknowledged assistants. Even one of the greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, chose to deflect credit for his compositions, writing at the bottom of each of his pieces “SDG,” for Soli Deo Gloria—to God alone the glory. By

Observe this beautiful fact: By bringing us into communion with God, prayer makes us share in God’s creativity. Contemplation nourishes our creative faculties and our inventiveness, particularly in the realm of beauty. Contemporary art is cruelly lacking in inspiration and very often produces nothing but painful ugliness, when people are so thirsty for beauty. Only a renewal of faith and prayer will enable artists to rediscover the sources of true creativity, so that they will once again be able to provide people with the beauty they so badly need, as was done by Fra Angelico, Rembrandt, or Johann Sebastian Bach. 5.

Por um instante a morte soltou-se a si mesma, expandindo-se até às paredes, encheu o quarto todo e alongou-se como um fluido até à sala contígua, aí uma parte de si deteve-se a olhar o caderno que estava aberto sobre uma cadeira, era a suite número seis opus mil e doze em ré maior de Johann Sebastian Bach composta em cöthen e não precisou de ter aprendido música para saber que ela havia sido escrita, como a Nona Sinfonia de Beethoven, na tonalidade da alegria, da unidade entre os homens, da amizade e do amor. Então aconteceu algo nunca visto, algo não imaginável, a morte deixou-se cair de joelhos, era toda ela, agora, um corpo refeito, e por isso é que tinha joelhos, e pernas, e pés, e braços, e mãos, e uma cara que entre as mãos escondia, e uns ombros que tremiam não se sabe porquê, chorar não será, não se pode pedir tanto a quem sempre deixa um rasto de lágrimas por onde passa, mas nenhuma delas que seja sua. Assim como estava, nem visível nem invisível, em esqueleto nem mulher, levantou-se do chão como um sopro e entrou no quarto.

Jesu, joy of man's desiring, Holy wisdom, love most bright; Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring Soar to uncreated light. Word of God, our flesh that fashioned, With the fire of life impassioned, Striving still to truth unknown, Soaring, dying round Thy throne. Through the way where hope is guiding, Hark, what peaceful music rings; Where the flock, in Thee confiding, Drink of joy from deathless springs. Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure; Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure. Thou dost ever lead Thine own In the love of joys unknown.

Bach liked to play the Viola, an instrument which put him, as it were, in the middle of the harmony in a position from which he could hear and enjoy it on both sides.

Science would not be what it is if there had not been a Galileo, a Newton or a Lavoisier, any more than music would be what it is if Bach, Beethoven and Wagner had never lived. The world as we know it is the product of its geniuses—and there may be evil as well as beneficent genius—and to deny that fact, is to stultify all history, whether it be that of the intellectual or the economic world.

Jesus bleibet meine Freude, Meines Herzens Trost und Saft, Jesus wehret allem Leide, Er ist meines Lebens Kraft, Meiner Augen Lust und Sonne, Meiner Seele Schatz und Wonne; Darum laß ich Jesum nicht Aus dem Herzen und Gesicht.

Through the way where hope is guiding, Hark, what peaceful music rings; Where the flock, in Thee confiding, Drink of joy from deathless springs. Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure; Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure. Thou dost ever lead Thine own In the love of joys unknown.

Rotstein was particularly affected. He stretched himself out across his mattress, just where he had fallen. Morel longed to bend over him and turn him over on his legs again, like a fallen and abandoned insect. To help him to fly away. But there was no need to help him. He flew by himself every evening. 'Hey, Rotstein, Rotstein.' 'Yes.' 'Are you still alive?' 'Yes. Don’t interrupt. I’m giving a concert.' 'What are you playing?' 'Johann Sebastian Bach.' 'Are you mad? A German?' 'Precisely. That’s just the point. To restore the balance. You can’t leave Germany on its back forever. You’ve got to help it to its feet again.

A man of rigid uprightness, sincerely religious; steeped in his art, earnest and grave, yet not lacking naive humour; ever hospitable and generous, and yet shrewd and cautious; pugnacious when his art was slighted or his rights were infringed; generous in the extreme to his wife and children, and eager to give the latter advantages which he had never known himself; a lover of sound theology, and of a piety as deep as it was unpretentious—such were the qualities of one who towers above all other masters of music in moral grandeur.

Sehr oft werde ich nach meinem Lieblingskomponisten gefragt - eine typische Frage von Laien an Musiker, eine, die wir Musiker uns gegenseitig wohl eher selten stellen. Vielleicht weil wir sie vordergründig als banal empfinden. Vielleicht auch, weil eine direkte Antwort darauf, ehrlich gesagt, unmöglich ist. Musik ist zu meinem Leben geworden. Nichts von dem, was ich tue, hat nicht irgendwas mit Musik zu tun. Ich habe Werke berühmter und weniger bekannter Komponisten einstudiert und dirigiert, aus ganz unterschiedlichen Epochen. Ich habe versucht, sie zu verstehen. Unzählige Stunden habe ich darüber nachgedacht, wie die Orchester, die ich dirigiere, die Werke spielen könnten, um dem Publikum die darin liegenden Aussagen nahe zubringen. Ich habe mich bemüht, bis zum Kern der Kompositionen vorzudringen und so mancher Rätselhaftigkeit auf die Spur zu kommen. Ich tue es heute noch. So sind mir meist die Komponisten, mit deren Werken ich mich gerade intensiv beschäftige, am präsentesten und vielleicht in dem Moment auch am nächsten. Aber sind sie mir dann auch die liebsten ? Ich weiß es nicht. Meine Entdeckungsreise durch die Welt der klassischen Musik, die vor sechzig Jahren an der Westküste Kaliforniens in einem Fischerdorf begann, ist längst nicht zu Ende. Im Gegenteil : Meine künstlerische Neugier treibt mich täglich weiter in diese faszinierte Welt hinein, deren Umfang immer größer wird, je tiefer ich in sie vordringe. Die Welt der Musik gleicht unserem expandierenden Universum. Je mehr ich mich mit Musik befasse, desto weniger meine ich über sie zu wissen. Wie also sollte ich diese offenbar gar nicht so banale Frage nach meinem Lieblingskomponisten beantworten ? Vielleicht, indem ich sie anders formuliere : "In deiner freien Zeit, in Stunden, die nicht verplant sind und ganz dir gehören - welche Musik würdest du dann für dich spielen ?" Die Antwort darauf ist viel einfacher. Es ist die Musik von Johann Sebastian Bach. Das sage ich ohne den Hauch eines Zweifels. Von frühester Kindheit an hat mich Bach verfolgt und ich ihn. Bis heute. Seine Musik lässt mich nicht los. Ihre Tiefe ist unendlich. Sie vereint alles, was klassische Musik ausmacht. Und bis heute bin ich auf der Suche nach dem Warum.

The early to mid-1780s were years of exponential growth for Mozart, not only in terms of his family and career but in his style and exposure as a composer and musician. He met Gottfried van Swieten, a Viennese government official who was a keen patron of musicians at this time. He gave Mozart access to his formidable library of compositions, and Mozart delved into study of the works of some famous predecessors, most notably Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Access to the breadth of their work highly influenced many of Mozart’s works in the year to come, as he shifted to a more Baroque style in many of his compositions. This influence can most clearly be heard in his opera The Magic Flute, as well as Symphony No. 41. It was also at this time, and perhaps influenced by his study of the greats that came so recently before him, that Mozart wrote one of his greatest liturgical pieces, Mass in C minor. It was performed for the first time in 1783 when Wolfgang and Constanze traveled to Salzburg in order to visit Mozart’s father and sister.

Various musicians consented here and there to give the young boy lessons, but in 1781, Ludwig officially became the pupil of Christian Gottlob Neefe, the new court organist. This relationship opened up Ludwig’s first great responsibility in 1782, when Neefe temporarily traveled elsewhere, leaving his duties as organist for religious services to Ludwig. The boy had to play twice every day for the Catholic masses in addition to other special services. In 1783, the busy Neefe also asked Ludwig to take his place in playing the harpsichord (another instrument similar to a piano) for rehearsals of the court orchestra. Neefe had stretched Ludwig’s capabilities by requiring him to practice the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Now Ludwig would have to read and play a variety of complicated musical pieces, further expanding his musical education. In addition, Beethoven began producing noteworthy compositions of his own. It was not until 1784, however, that Ludwig was officially appointed as Neefe’s assistant as court organist and finally began receiving a small salary. At last, he could help to financially support his family with his music, the purpose toward which his father had groomed him practically from babyhood. In 1787, at 16 years of age, Beethoven was sent to Vienna, Austria, to study under the musical master, Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart. It is not known whether he was able to receive lessons from Mozart, though some say that he was instructed by him in musical composition. Unfortunately, Beethoven’s mother became seriously ill with tuberculosis, and he had to hurry home from Vienna to say goodbye before her death at 40 years of age.

Now Mrs. Retallack wondered how the effects of what she called "intellectual mathematically sophisticated music of both East and West" would appeal to plants. As program director for the American Guild of Organists, she chose choral preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's Orgelbuchlein and the classical strains of the sitar, a less-com­ plicated Hindustani version of the south Indian veena, played by Ravi Shankar, the Bengali Brahmin. The plants gave positive evidence of liking Bach, since they leaned an unprecedented thirty-five degrees toward the preludes. But even this affirmation was far exceeded by their reaction to Shankar: in their straining to reach the source of the classical Indian music they bent more than halfway to the horizontal, at angles in excess of sixty degrees, the nearest one almost embracing the speaker. In order not to be swayed by her own special taste for the classical music of both hemispheres Mrs. Retallack, at the behest of hundreds of young people, followed Bach and Shankar with trials of folk and "country-western" music. Her plants seemed to produce no more reac­tion than those in the silent chamber. Perplexed, Mrs. Retallack could only ask: "Were the plants in complete harmony with this kind of earthy music or didn't they care one way or the other?" Jazz caused her a real surprise. When her plants heard recordings as varied as Duke Ellington's "Soul Call" and two discs by Louis Arm­ strong, 5 5 percent of the plants leaned fifteen to twenty degrees toward the speaker, and growth was more abundant than in the silent chamber. Mrs. Retallack also determined that these different musical styles markedly affected the evaporation rate of distilled water inside the chambers. From full beakers, fourteen to seventeen milliliters evapo­rated over a given time period in the silent chambers, twenty to twenty­ five milliliters vaporized under the influence of Bach, Shankar, and jazz; but, with rock, the disappearance was fifty-five to fifty-nine milliliters.

As a contrast to the Bach of pure music I present the Bach who is a poet and painter in sound. In his music and in his texts he expresses the emotional as well as the descriptive with great vitality and clarity. Before all else he aims at rendering the pictorial in lines of sound. He is even more tone painter than tone poet. His art is nearer to that of Berlioz than to that of Wagner. If the text speaks of drifting mists, of boisterous winds, of roaring rivers, of waves that ebb and flow, of leaves falling from the tree, of bells that toll for the dying, of the confident faith that walks with firm steps or the weak faith that falters, of the proud who will be debased and the humble who will be exalted, of Satan rising in rebellion, of angels on the clouds of heaven, then one sees and hears all this in his music. Bach has, in fact, his own language of sound. There are in his music constantly recurring rhythmical motives expressing peaceful bliss, lively joy, intense pain, or sorrow sublimely borne. The impulse to express poetic and pictorial concepts is the essence of music. It addresses itself to the listener's creative imagination and seeks to kindle in him the feelings and visions with which the music was composed. But this it can do only if the person who uses the language of sound possesses the mysterious faculty of rendering thoughts with a superior clarity and precision. In this respect Bach is the greatest of the great.

while he was at Lüeburg, he several times travelled to Hamburg to hear the famous organist, 61 Johann [pg 13] Adam Reinken.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, 43 at Eisenach, where his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was Court and Town Musician.

Two seventeenth-century Bachs, identical twins and both of course musicians, were so alike, especially when they chose to wear similar clothes, that even their wives could not tell them apart, and they could indulge in occasional wife swapping without their spouses’ noticing. Their playing, too, was indistinguishable. One of these twins, Ambrosius, was the father of Johann Sebastian Bach. 2

Johann Sebastian Bach once said that the only purpose for music should be the glory of God and the re-creation of the human spirit.

On the death of Kuhnau in 1723 93 Bach was appointed Director of Music and Cantor to St. Thomas' School, Leipzig, 94 a position which he [pg 22] occupied until his death.

Johann Sebastian set out for Lüneburg with one of his Ohrdruf schoolfellows, named Erdmann 59 (afterwards Russian Resident at Danzig), and entered the choir of St. Michael's Convent.

In 1733 the birthday of another Professor was marked by the performance of the Cöthen Cantata to yet another text ( Die Freude reget sich

True emotion is not suggested by hammering the Clavier.

On Good Friday the Passion was performed in the two principal churches alternately. Leipzig adopted no official Hymn-book. The compilation from which the Hymns were chosen by Bach was the eight-volumed Gesangbuch of Paul Wagner, published at Leipzig for Dresden use in 1697.

That Forkel is remembered at all is due solely to his monograph on Bach. Written at a time when Bach's greatness was realised in hardly any quarter, the book claimed for him pre-eminence which a tardily enlightened world since has conceded him.

the first English version of Forkel's monograph, published in 1820,

In 1695, when Johann Sebastian was not quite ten years old, his father died. He lost his mother at an earlier period. 47 So, being left an orphan, [pg 10] he became dependent on his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, Organist at Ohrdruf, 48 from whom he received his earliest lessons on the Clavier.

On August 3, 1725, his secular Cantata, Der zufried-engestellte Aeolus, was performed at the students' celebration of Doctor August Friedrich Müller's name-day.

On November 21, [pg 44] 1734, the lost Cantata Thomana sass annoch betrübt was sung at the induction of Gesner's successor, Johann August Ernesti, as Rector of St. Thomas' School.

Johann Nikolaus Forkel, author of the monograph of which the following pages afford a translation, was born at Meeder, a small village in Saxe-Coburg, on February 22, 1749, seventeen months before the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose first biographer he became.

the first and most important of the early notices of Bach was the obituary article, or “Nekrolog,” contributed by his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, and Johann Friedrich Agricola, one of Bach's most distinguished pupils, to the fourth volume of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, published at Leipzig in 1754.

Meanwhile, in 1830 and 1831 the St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion had been engraved, and by 1845 the B minor Mass was in print.

For Bach's works are a priceless national patrimony;

the appointment of Dr. Gottlieb Kortte as Professor of Roman Law was celebrated by Bach's Cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten.

Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord,

the memorable revival of the St. Matthew Passion at Berlin, which the youthful Mendelssohn, Zelter's pupil, [pg xviii] conducted in March 1829, exactly one hundred years after the first production of the mighty work at Leipzig.

The artist, in his judgment, is the dictator of public taste, not its slave.

the statement of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, 346 confirmed by Forkel, 347 Bach's earliest biographer, that his father composed five Cantatas for every Sunday and Festival of the ecclesiastical year.

Of the 295 Cantatas only 202 have come down to us, three of them in an incomplete state.

Bach also composed a great number of Cantatas, chiefly for the choir of St. Thomas' School, Leipzig.

in 1747, Bach became a member of the “Society of the Musical Sciences,” founded by Mizler,

Whether you love Bach or would rather listen to a composition produced by Kulitta Software, Bach has and will continue to demand the we approach and answer the question, 'what is the art, science and language of music?

Bach's simple and basic themes ultimately engage and appeal to my adolescent side while the seemingly complex arrangements, though perhaps patronizingly in some cases, also reflect my juvenile perception of what looks and sounds 'grown-up,' intelligent, refined and sophisticated. There were few composers and musicians in my youth that I could say understood me and really got me, almost all were classical. J. S. Bach was one one of them.

Nowhere so well as in the Well-tempered Clavichord are we made to realise that art was Bach’s religion. He does not depict natural soul-states, like Beethoven in his sonatas, no striving and struggling towards a goal, but the reality of life felt by a spirit always conscious of being superior to life, a spirit in which the most contradictory emotions, wildest grief and exuberant cheerfulness, are simply phases of a fundamental superiority of soul. It is this that gives the same transfigured air to the sorrow laden E flat minor prelude of the First Part and the care-free, volatile prelude in G major in the Second Part. Whoever has once felt this wonderful tranquility has comprehended the mysterious spirit that has here expressed all it knew and felt of life in the secret language of tone, and will render Bach the thanks we render only to the great souls to whom it is given to reconcile men with life and bring them peace.

The works that Johann Sebastian Bach has left us, are a priceless national heritage, of a kind that no other race possesses.

The fact that the work today has become common property may console us for the other fact that an analysis of it is almost as impossible as it is to depict a wood by enumerating the trees and describing their appearance. We can only repeat again and again—take them and play them and penetrate into this world for yourself. Aesthetic elucidation of any kind must necessarily be superficial here, What so fascinates us in the work is not the form or the build of the piece, but the world-view that is mirrored in it. It is not so much that we enjoy the Well-tempered Clavichord as that we are edified by it. Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter—to all these it gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water.

Bach represents standing and moving, resting and hurrying, elevation and depression, with a naïveté almost characteristic of the first beginning of art. Without abandoning this minute detail-painting in his later works, his method now becomes, as it were, transfigured. His thought, vision, and emotion have remained unchanged, but in the later works the tone-painting is not so isolated; it is part and parcel of the melodic form that constitutes the basis of his movements, and his genius provided him with themes that contain, in their germ, all the possibilities of expression that the movement will afterwards require.

Precisely in Sebastian Bach, we can clearly recognise that not this or that style alone can lay claim to the title of a church style, but that only a soul filled with the holiest and highest can speak the language that can bring the most exalted things home to us, and that discards the mean and the unworthy.

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber Symphony Number 5 by Gustav Mahler “O mio babbino caro” from Giannia Schicchi by Puccini The Spruce, Op. 75 by Jean Sibelius Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liszt Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major by Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 by Frederic Chopin

Franklin Mallory, recognized the strains of Johann Sebastian Bach’s D minor toccata and fugue. Mallory found this famous work untidy and illogical and annoyingly reminiscent of Buxtehude—but then, organ music in general made him impatient. Like the rhetoric of his political enemies, it was overwrought.

¡Oh, cómo me gusta el café azucarado! Es más agradable que mil besos, más dulce que el vino moscatel. Café, café, te necesito, y si alguien quiere confortarme ¡oh, que me sirva café! Aria de Cantata del Café, de Johann Sebastian Bach.

72 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 1685-1750

Johann Sebastian Bach presumably had other things in mind when, in about 1723, he wrote his "Air on a G string" (actually so named by a later arranger.) Part of a larger piece for string quartet, the "Air" includes a violin solo that fits entirely on the G string, the lowest of the violin's four strings.

Johann Sebastian Bach once walked two hundred miles to hear a master play the organ.

E pensa al tempo in cui viveva Johann Sebastian Bach e la musica assomigliava a una rosa fiorita sulla sconfinata landa nevosa del silenzio.

I offer you my best as we explore the edges of an incredibly fascinating and important frontier, even though a voice within me would prefer simply to play music for you instead—perhaps Chopin Nocturnes with their many subtle nuances of emotional expression, or the profoundly powerful yet joyful and playful Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, William Shakespeare, and Michelangelo Buonarroti stand together at the peak of Western culture.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was certainly the zenith of the composers coming out of the Reformation. His music was a direct result of the Reformation culture and the biblical Christianity of the time, which was so much a part of Bach himself. There would have been no Bach had there been no Luther. Bach wrote on his score initials representing such phrases as: “With the help of Jesus”—“To God alone be the glory”—“In the name of Jesus.” It was appropriate that the last thing Bach the Christian wrote was “Before Thy Throne I Now Appear.” Bach consciously related both the form and the words of his music to biblical truth. Out of the biblical context came a rich combination of music and words and a diversity with unity. This rested on the fact that the Bible gives unity to the universal and the particulars, and therefore the particulars have meaning. Expressed musically, there can be endless variety and diversity without chaos. There is variety yet resolution.

Bach was inducted into his office as Cantor of St. Thomas' School at nine o'clock on the morning of Monday, May 31, 1723. He died in his official residence there at a quarter to nine on the evening of Tuesday, July 28, 1750. He was buried early on the morning of Friday, July 31, in the churchyard of St. John's, Leipzig.