Sublime

Bach saw himself not as a glittering artist, but as a craftsman. Generations of his family had been musicians. Orphaned at the age of 10, Bach taught himself music. He walked hundreds of miles to hear the best organists of his day. For most of his life, he composed a new piece every week to be performed on Sunday. At the beginning and end of each

When he was 48, Johann Sebastian Bach acquired a copy of Luther's three-volume translation of the Bible. He pored over it as if it were a long-lost treasure. He underlined passages, corrected errors in the text and commentary, inserted missing words, and made notes in the margins. Near 1 Chronicles 25 (a listing of Davidic musicians) he wrote, "Thi

S. Bach on a loop, starting with the Brandenburg Concertos. Volume level three.”

Bach's stay in Leipzig, as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas's church and school, wasn't always happy. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. They said he was a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Consequently, they paid him

He was born and schooled in Eisenach, Thuringia (at the same school Luther had attended), part of a family that in seven generations produced 53 prominent musicians. Johann Sebastian received his first musical instruction from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. By age 10 Bach was orphaned, and he went to live and study with his elder

These seven psalms are among the fifteen chapters known as the Songs of Ascent.

In Leipzig he also composed his epic Mass in B Minor, The Passion of St. John and The Passion of St. Matthew—all for use as worship services. The latter piece has sometimes been called "the supreme cultural achievement of all Western civilization," and even the radical skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) admitted upon hearing it, "One who has