Back to Bach

Lutheran, The, Jul 2000 by Romine, Linda

On this 250th anniversary of the composers death, hear again a new song of faith

As a young music student in his native Germany, Helmuth Rifling rode his bicycle to a church 30 miles away to hear J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor. "We just wanted to hear Bach," remembers Billing, an internationally acclaimed conductor and founder/ artistic director of the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart. "It wasn't important how it was done, but that it was done:'

Lutherans like Rifling and others worldwide this year are celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, and died at 65 in Leipzig (see also, page 31 ). July 28, 2000, marks the 250th anniversary of Bach's death.

Revered as perhaps the greatest composer of Western music, Bach was not as well-known in his day. He was first and foremost a church musician, the consummate Lutheran organist and choirmaster whose devotion to God inspired all the music he created, both sacred and secular.

Bach started as an organist in Arnstadt and Mulhausen before accepting subsequent appointments for the royal courts in Weimar and Cothen. He spent the last 27 years of his life as cantor and music director at St. Thomas Church and School in Leipzig. A prolific composer, Bach wrote chamber and orchestral music, pieces for organ and other keyboard instruments, choral works including motets, hymns, chorales, oratorios, masses, musical settings of the Passion story and more than 200 cantatas.

The faith that was so vital to Bach's vocation and life still resonates within Lutheran congregations and beyond. "As Christians, we are dealing with a long and meaningful history," says Christoph Wolff, professor of music and dean of the graduate school of arts and sciences at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. His latest book is Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (W.W. Norton & Co., 2000).

"If we read the New Testament, to begin with, we are dealing with texts that are almost 2,000 years old. If we are dealing with music that tries to bring the biblical message alive in the 17th or 18th centuries through music, that adds, of course, historical distance. But at the same time it brings us a step closer to the continuing tradition that is so meaningful for today's Christians."

For contemporary Christians, historical context is a key to understanding Bach's music. Although he dedicated his completed works to the glory of God, he also had another intent. "Bach's music was written for the re-creation of the mind," Wolff says. "It's not entertainment. It's not something that is merely refreshing-it has a cleansing effect and makes you think of the basics:'

Author Madeleine L' Engle writes about that sense of spiritual renewal in Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art (North Point Press, 1995): "Bach is, for me, the Christian artist par excellence, and if I ask myself why, I think it has something to do with his sense of newness. I've been working on his C-minor Toccata in Fugue since college, and I find something new in it every day. God was new for Bach every day, was never taken for granted."

"Back loved God with his whole life," says Lorraine Brugh, organist and assistant professor of music at Valparaiso [Ind.] University. "Back was so consistent with Martin Luther's ideas, both of theology and music.

"He wrote for his congregation. Bach knew his congregation [in Leipzig] knew the chorales he employed in his cantatas. He expected that the congregations would understand the connections between these chorales and the gospel story."

Bach owned the collected edition of Luther's works, Brugh says. His Bible is filled with notations that suggest he had it beside him as he composed.

Bach drew no distinction between sacred and secular music, as Wolff explains: "Quite a number of the secular cantatas have been reworked as sacred works. That shows the music created for a secular purpose could easily be transplanted into the context of a worship service with the appropriate adjustments."

L'Engle cites the example of Bach's chorale O Sacred Head Now Wounded that he based on the melody of a popular street song. "Bach's religious genius was so great that it's now recognized as one of the most superb pieces of religious music ever written," she states. "There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation."

To fully appreciate Bach's music requires an understanding of its purpose, says Calvin R. Stapert, who attempts to bridge some of the barriers of language and historical distance in his just-published My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach (Eerdmans, 2000).

"You'll find references to Bach's music as universal," says Stapert, a music professor at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich. "But there's no such thing as universal music. Bach's music was written for his time, his place. It's very much grounded in 18th-century German Lutheranism. That voice is one we should still hear. Not that it's directly relevant [today].