I never new a whole lot about Bach or his music. There are a few pieces of Bach's music that I have loved over the years. I, also, had heard a little of his testimony as a Christian, which endeared me to learn more about his works.
I recently have listened to a series of lectures from The Great Courses by professor Robert Greenberg. I also listened to and audio version of Johann Sebastian Bach by Rich Marschall. What information I am going to share in this blog post is based on what I can remember of this course and book.
Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1685 to 1750. He composed a massive amount of music. His compositions were in the highly ornamented baroque style. Most of his works were for church services. Bach was a devoted Lutheran. He lived in Germany his whole life and never traveled over 300 miles from his place of birth.
His Bible has been discovered and preserved. It is a German Bible translated by Luther. Bach made notes in the margins of his Bible so historians are able to get an idea of how personal his faith was to him.
At the top of the page of a vast majority of his compositions he wrote Jesus, juva meaning Jesus, help me. And at the conclusion of his pieces he wrote the abbreviation for to God alone be the glory in Latin: S.D.G.
Not only did Bach write religious music he also wrote music for birthdays, weddings, and entertainment. One of my favorite pieces of his compositions (Sheep May Safely Graze) was written for some important person's birthday.
Bach was born into a musical family, which no doubt contributed to his skill, but there is no denying that he had a special musical genius. He was truly gifted by God. His music transcends time and language. Those who hear the beauty in his music can hardly help themselves from thinking of their Creator, regardless of personal faith or religious beliefs. At least that is what I see in the comment section of Bach performances on YouTube. And that is how I feel about many of his most famous pieces. Bach strove to glorify God and I think he was supernaturally blessed to be able to make music that lives on after himself and points the listeners to a Being greater than themselves, the only Being possessing the power to create life and all things lovely: God Almighty.
Bach was a devoted father and by all accounts lead a happy family. The Bach family was very large. His first wife, Barbara, gave birth to 7 children. After Barbara's early death Bach married Anna Magdalena. Anna had 13 children. Sadly, infant mortality being what it was in those days only 10 Bach children survived to adulthood. Bach taught his children music and how to play the organ and maybe other instruments that I can't remember. Bach's wives and children helped him to make hand copies of music to pass out to the all singers and musicians every week. There were no copy machines back then!
About a hundred years after Bach's death someone cataloged what works of his that could be found. (This is still an ongoing project.) Much of his music is lost to time, but well over a thousand compositions remain to this day.
Random facts:
>Bach was big fan of coffee.
>When renovations were done on the Church where Bach's body had been inturned they measured his skeleton and said he must have been about 5'7" tall and had a large head.
>Bach's music has been sent to outer space. The Voyager space craft carries a golden record to represent mankind's best musical art and three of Bach's compositions were included.
Here are a few of my favorite pieces of music by Bach. Please tell me if you have any Bach favorites in the comment section!
This is a part of Cantata BWV 147
This is the song that I walked down the aisle to during our wedding ceremony.
This is a part of Cantata BWV 208
This song was also played at my wedding!
Cantata BWV 140 also known as Sleepers Awake
I was introduced to this song by the lecture series. At first my favorite part was movement 4, and then I really liked movement 6, too, and then I listened to the whole thing and decided that I like the whole thing altogether. This cantata was written to be sang during a church service. The scripture reading for the particular Sunday was the story of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom to come. The words of the Cantata parallel the message from the ten virgins story. All the words are in German but I was able to find a video with the English translation written on the screen. After reading the translation the vocal music seemed to come alive for me, even though I still can't understand exactly what they are saying. I am able to catch on to the spirit of what they are singing.
Movement 4
The whole Cantata BWV 140
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