Bach

Bach’s works are the Reformation set to music
( Will Durant )

Bach is that benevolent god, to whom musicians should offer a prayer before starting to work, so that they may be saved from mediocrity.
( Debussy )

Bach opens a vista to the universe.
After experiencing him, people feel
there is meaning to life after all.
( Helmut Walcha )

[I seek] to inspire the pupils with abhorrence
of the crudities of Bach.
( Joseph Hiller, who succeeded Bach
as cantor of Thomasschule in Leipzig )

I find in them a world of peace amid the turmoil of human strife.
( Albert Schweitzer, on the Well-Tempered Clavier )

Bach played with his themes like a jolly juggler,
throwing them into the air, turning them inside out,
tumbling them upside down, then setting them soundly on their feet again.
Notes and themes were not only his meat and drink and atmosphere,
they were also his relaxation and his holidays.
( Will Durant )

If life were to deprive me of hope and faith,
this one chorale would bring them back.
( Mendelssohn to Schumann, on Bach’s “Make Yourself Beautiful, Beloved Soul” )

Music was never for Massenet the cosmic voice
heard by Bach and Beethoven.
( Debussy )

Why waste money on psychotherapy
when you can listen to Bach’s B Minor Mass?
( Michael Torke )

[Music is] an agreeable harmony for the honor of God
and the permissible delight of the soul.
( Bach )

His style and compositions are unduly conservative.
As the best musicians are not available,
we must take a man of moderate ability.
( One Leipzig municipal council member, on Bach
who was a candidate for the cantor of the Thomasschule )

My heart beats in love for the great and lofty art
of this ancestral father of harmony.
( Beethoven, on Bach )

You may be sure that Bach, in whom is all music,
snapped his fingers at harmonic formulas.
( Debussy )

The two greatest events in German history in my lifetime
were the foundation of the German Empire
and the complete publication of Bach
( Brahms )

The aim and final end of all music
should be none other than the glory of God
and the refreshment of the soul.
( Bach )

Playing the organ is simple.
You just press the right keys
at the right time
and the instrument
practically plays itself!
( Bach )

JOHANN SEBASTIAN
BACH
born: Eisenach, 21 March 1685
died: Leipzig, 28 July 1750, aged sixty-four