Wednesday, August 5, 2020

“The Fifth Evangelist”: In Appreciation of J.S. Bach

The covid-19 pandemic is still raging. The country is beset with racial tension and political turmoil. But we humans can’t live by bad news alone. We need breaks during which we can focus on truth, beauty, and goodness—or on the sublime music of J.S. Bach, sometimes called the fifth evangelist.

The Life of Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born 335 years ago, in March 1685 in Eisenach, a town in what is now Germany. Martin Luther, who was born 202 years earlier, went to school in that same small city.

Orphaned at the age of 10, Bach went to school in 1700 on a music scholarship and found employment that same year as a choral singer and instrumentalist for church services.

Throughout his lifetime, Bach was a devout Lutheran, and much of his music was composed for churches in the states that joined together to form the German Confederation in 1815.

After a series of prominent positions in several cities, he spent the last 27 years of his life in Leipzig, one of the largest cities in Germany. It wasn’t his most prestigious position, but it was where he produced his most enduring music.

For fifty years, Bach lived, worked, and excelled as few have as a musician. He died 270 years ago last week, on July 28, 1750. 

In front of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig (dedicated in 1908)

The Music of Bach

Bach was one of the greatest and most prolific musicians. He composed a wide variety of music, and there are over 1,080 extant pieces. My favorite is “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” his powerful organ piece that was perhaps composed in 1706 when he was 21.

Bach’s most notable musical compositions, though, are his two major oratorios, “St. John Passion” (1724) and “St. Matthew Passion” (1727).

Those marvelous works, as well as his impressive cantatas composed for church worship, led to him long being referred to as “the fifth evangelist,” following Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (He is identified in that way, for example, on the cover of the Dec. 27, 1968, issue of Time magazine.)

The legacy of the great composer languished after his death, but nearly 80 years later, in 1829, it was resurrected by the young Felix Mendelssohn (1809~47) with his performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.”

Bach’s reputation as one of the world’s greatest composers has been firm ever since. Bach was also one of the most versatile composers—and his music has been performed in a wide variety of ways, especially in recent decades.

“The Joy of Bach” (1978), first produced for television and now available on DVD (and free for those who have Amazon Prime), is a “delightful and kaleidoscopic presentation of the great composer's music” that “includes an impressive assortment of period and contemporary performances.”

The Faith of Bach

Even though Bach composed music for the court as well as the church, he once wrote, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Accordingly, at the beginning of many of his music manuscripts Bach often penned “J.J.,” Latin for Jesu Juva (help me, Jesus). And at the end of his compositions he routinely added the initials “S.D.G.,” which stands for Soli Deo Gloria (glory to God alone).

(I encourage you to watch “Glory to God Alone: The Life of J.S. Bach,” 2006, a 43 minute film that is available, here, on YouTube.)

But since he wrote for the glory of God, his music was, and is, not only for church folks but for all people. Mark Swed, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, wrote last month (see here) how Bach’s Cantata No. 28, written in 1727, is “a lullaby for our times too.”

Swed also contends that during these last four months, “Bach has been classical music’s No. 1 comfort-giver.”

And even before the covid-19 pandemic, someone posted this comment on a YouTube video of a Bach piece: “Whenever the world leaves behind a complete mess in my head, I choose Bach and he'll always fix it.

That’s what a good evangelist does.


15 comments:

  1. I also appreciate the recommendations. I am forwarding these on.

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  2. Reading this piece reminds me why I read your blog. It is informative and inspirational. Soli Deo Gloria! Michael

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  3. Not long after Anton's comment (above), local Thinking Friend Temp Sparkman wrote, "Starting with Bach is a good start to the day."

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    1. I appreciate the above comments from four local Thinking Friends. Well, actually Michael hasn't lived in the greater Kansas City area for a long time, but he grew up here in Liberty and went to William Jewell College.

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  4. Here are comments from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:

    "Thanks, Leroy, for your observations about the work of J.S.Bach.

    "I was turned on to classical music as a teenager by Bach's Double Violin Concerto. I have, of course, discovered many other wonderful pieces by Bach, including the Toccata and Fugue, also one of my favorite Bach pieces.

    "Every Good Friday, Bethany College in Lindsborg KS performs the St. Matthew Passion with professional soloists from New York and elsewhere. I have attended two or three performances and I can strongly recommend it."

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    1. Thanks for your comments, Eric--and thanks for mentioning Bach's Double Violin Concerto, which I was not familiar with but have been enjoying listening to. I also looked up how far it is to Bethany College, but since it is more than a six-hour round-trip from Liberty, I probably won't try to go there next Good Friday as I would like to do.

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  5. Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky, who had a longstanding appreciation for and contact with Thomas Merton, wrote,

    "Merton commented on Bach, love of whom he shared with Barth, in 'Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander'."

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  6. Excellent post Leroy! I love Bach's music, always have from the very first time I listened to his Brandenburg Concertos. It is difficult for me to choose one favourite composition, as I have two of them that I love equally as much. Like you Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is a favourite, I especially like the old recording of Albert Schweitzer playing that piece. As you may know, Schweitzer having many gifts, was an authority on Bach and a musicologist as well as an accomplished organist. My second favourite is, of course, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, I consider it required listening for the season of Lent, especially during Holy Week.

    I don't know if you are aware of this, but Bach had his times of suffering and grief in his personal life. His first wife died, and of his 20 children, 10 of them never lived to become adults.

    When I listen to Bach, I am convinced that God inspired his music. The fact that it still remains popular today confirms this reality.

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    1. Thank you, Garth, for posting comments for the first time under your name. I appreciate your pertinent comments--and for sharing the information about Bach's wife and children. I was amazed when I first learned that he had 20 children. His second wife must have been quite an outstanding woman: she was a musician in her own right but gave birth to 13 children after she and J.S. married in 1721. Those 13 children were born between 1723 to 1742 and seven of them died at a young age. Such was the case with many, many families in the 18th century.

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  7. My wife, Robin, son, Wesley, and I had the privilege of attend a Christmas Eve service at the church in the photo in Leipzig in 2005. Very moving. What a gift he gave us all.

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    1. Thanks for sharing this, Dave. That was really special that you were able to visit St. Thomas Church where Bach worked as "Kapellmeister" (music director) from 1723 until his death in 1750--and where his remains have been buried since 1950.

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  8. Bach played a role in my short career as a hymn text writer. Some decades ago I decided what we really needed was a hymn based on the Beatitudes. So I decided to try writing one on the tune to "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," which was harmonized by Bach, and a tune used several places by him, including four settings in St Matthew Passion. (I give credit for this info to Wikipedia, as this is way above my pay grade.)

    Anyway, I envisioned it as Jesus' response to hearing "O Sacred Head," bugged a few friends to help with various quandaries, and finally had it ready to go. I even tried it out when I was alone in a box canyon in Dinosaur National Monument, and it echoed very nicely off of the stone walls! I gave a copy to my minister of music, and a couple of years later he actually had a quartet sing it. About that time I also heard two other versions of the Beatitudes sung; but never again for any of them, including mine. So I took the hint, and ended my career as a hymn writer. Now I just focus on confusing Leroy!

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  9. Craig, I guess I am now confused as to why you gave up being a hymn writer if you were able to write a hymn to be sung to a Bach tune!

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  10. Leroy, your reply somehow inspired me to try to find the text and share it, but alas, it appears to be on an old computer disc somewhere. (Although I did find an "I've Been Working on the Railroad" parody I wrote about the same time during a government shutdown when most of us were furloughed. It featured Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, with a call for "Congress blow your horn!")

    However, having written it once, I decided to try to reconstruct it; the unreliable results of which are below:

    Blest are the poor in spirit, theirs the Kingdom of God.
    Blest are those who are mourning, for they are comforted.
    Blest are the meek and lowly, for they inherit Earth.
    Blest those who hunger and thirst, with righteousness now filled.

    Blest are the merciful ones, for they receive mercy.
    And blest are the pure in heart, for they will see their God.
    Blest are the Earth’s peacemakers, now called children of God.
    Blest are the Earth’s peacemakers, now called children of God.

    Blest are those persecuted, for sake of righteousness;
    With blessing for the righteous, the Kingdom of Heaven.
    And blest are you when reviled, persecuted for me,
    Rejoice your reward is great, like prophets before you.

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