The Significance of Bach

Of course, these combinations of texts would be of little interest to us if taken alone. But, even with all their problems in terms of wording and content, they are what stimulated Bach to compose. Bach's imagination was ignited by their words, his thinking about musical structure was set in motion by their wording, and his ability to construct large architectonic connections was challenged by the goal that such texts provided.

Let us summarize all of these thoughts on Bach's self-concept and his life's work. The main importance of Bach's works lies in his church music. J. S. Bach, the church musician, composed for the worship services of the churches in which he was employed as cantor. He set to music texts that were appropriate to his time. The basic idea of the music that came into being under these circumstances was, on one hand, the glorification of God-Soli Deo Gloria, as Bach wrote at the close of many of his scores. On the other hand, it was the message of the church, directed at the people of his time, and reshaped anew within each successive worship service. Bach served these purposes, these goals, with all the powers available to him. To make this tangible in a contemporary presentation of his works seems to me to be the most important task of the interpretation of his music.

Next Page

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19