Issue 95: The Gospel According to J.S. Bach The Gospel According to J.S. Bach: Did You Know? A Musical Vocabulary for Budding Bach Fans Compiled by Calvin Stopert and Jennifer Trofton BAROQUE: The period of music history from 1600 to 1750, beginning with the birth of opera and ending with the death of Bach. This was an era characterized by flamboyance and vivid expression. It was also the golden age of Lutheran church music. BWV:Bach- Werke-Verzeichnis or Bach Works Catalog, the numbering system used to refer to Bach's compositions There are over 1000 BWV items in all—a testimony to Bach's astounding output. Bach was modest about his achievements, offering the classic understatement, "1 was obliged to be industrious; whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well." In his lifetime he was known as a good church musician, not as a composer, and he was largely forgotten until Felix Mendelssohn performed the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829. The Bach Society, established in 1850, began collecting and publishing Bach's works—a century after his death. PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS: Put all of one's energies into something. This literally refers to pulling out the "stops" in a pipe organ so the maximum amount of air is flowing through the pipes and the organ is playing with the loudest volume. Bach not only "pulled out all the stops" in his music, proving himself to be one of the most creative and prolific composers in history, but he was also an expert in organ design and was called upon to examine new or repaired organs all over Germany. Bach's first biographer recorded, "The first thing he did in trying out an organ was to draw out all the stops and to play with the full organ. He used to say in jest that he must first of all know whether the instrument had good lungs." KAPELLMEISTER: Literally "chapel master." However, in Bach's time it referred to the person in charge of the music at court. So ironically, the only time in his life when Bach was called "chapel master" was when he worked for the Prince of Anhalt-Cothen and had no church music duties. CANTOR: Literally "singer." In Bach's time this term referred to someone who taught (not just music) in a school and selected, composed, and directed the music for liturgical and civic occasions. So Bach, during his nearly 30 years in Leipzig, was supposed to be as much a teacher as a church musician. But he got permission to hire assistants for his academic duties so that he could shift his energies to directing music in the churches—a shift that did not meet the approval of all of the authorities. One of them, when hiring Bach's successor, said, "The school needs a cantor, not a Kapellmeister." CANTATA: A term originally used in the 17th century for vocal chamber music. Although Bach rarely used the term for any of his compositions, it has become the standard designation for his multi- movement works for choral and/or solo voices, usually based on the Gospel lesson of the Sunday or feast day for which they were written. Bach wrote more than 300 sacred cantatas, though only about 200 have survived. He also wrote a few secular cantatas for entertainment and celebratory occasions at court, the university, or wealthy households. One of his best– known pieces, "Sheep may safely graze," is from Cantata 208, which he wrote for the birthday of the Duke of Weissenfels. The "sheep" originally meant the citizens of Weissenfels who could "safely graze" under the gracious care of their duke. When we hear the piece today, we generally think of sheep under the care of the Good Shepherd. Bach, no doubt, would approve. CHORALE: Lutheran congregational hymn. Pieces commonly known as "Bach chorales" are four-part harmonization that Bach made of chorale melodies and incorporated into his cantatas and Passions. The melodies are usually not by Bach. COUNTERPOINT or POLYPHONY: A kind of music in which all the parts are more or less equal in importance. No one part carries the melody and no part is merely accompaniment. FUGUE: A particular type of counterpoint based on a melodic theme (called the subject) that is played alone at the beginning of the piece and then imitated by other voices or parts. As the piece unfolds, the subject appears periodically in various parts, sometimes overlapping. Bach was the supreme master of the fugue. Near the end of his life he was composing The Art of Fugue, a collection of fugues all based on the same subject. Unfortunately, Bach died before he could finish it. The final, incomplete fugue ends just after Bach added a four-note theme that spells his name: B (B–flat), A, C, H (B–natural) ORATORIO: A large-scale musical setting of a sacred text, usually a dramatic story from the Old Testament. Handel's Messiah is the best&ndashknown example. Bach wrote three oratorios, for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension. The typical 18th-century oratorio was devotional concert music, but Bach's oratorios were built around texts taken directly from the Bible and were intended to be played in church on the appropriate feast day, like his Passions. Bach and Handel never met. Bach traveled to Halle with the hope of meeting Handel and invited Handel to visit him in Leipzig, but neither meeting materialized. Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine. Issue 95: The Gospel According to J.S. Bach A Joyful Noise Jennifer Trafton In my grandmother's house there was an organ. It was an electric Hammond from the 1960s, the kind that whirrrrrrrred when you turned it on and whispered and clicked when you pushed the plastic keys. My brothers (who have grown up to be accomplished musicians) and I (who have not) all played it as children, stretching our legs far to reach the pedals and entertaining—and I'm sure occasionally annoying—the adults. As the CHB staff discussed pictures for this issue, we were awed again and again by the magnificent organs Bach played. Organs seem, well, old-fashioned today, like petticoats and straight-backed wooden church pews. But they were the computers of the Baroque era, the epitome of complex craftsmanship, scientific precision, and cutting-edge technology. And Bach was their master. For those who have come under its spell, Bach's music is anything but old-fashioned. In our Winter 2005 issue, executive editor David Neff wrote of Bach's impact on him: "I can still remember the first time I heard the creed sung as part of Bach's magnificent Mass in B Minor. It was nearly 40 years ago at UCLA under the baton of Roger Wagner. The pain of Bach's descending line in the Crucifixus (He was crucified) nearly moved me to tears, and then I wept with joy at the giddy shock of the brilliantly ascending Et Resurrexit (And rose again). Bach knew how to make theology sing." David himself is an organist and choir director at his church, and he's not the only CHB staff member with musical interests. Emily LaHood plays the piano and guitar. I tried (and gave up) the violin a long time ago, flirted for a while with a viola da gamba, and now give private guitar and mandolin concerts for my dog, who usually hides. Doug Johnson and Rebecca Golossanov both met their spouses through music. Doug (an erstwhile drummer and bagpiper) met his wife (a mandolinist) when both were playing in a high school band. Rebecca's father, a classical guitarist, introduced her to her future husband at a concert, and although Rebecca and her new acquaintance didn't pay much attention to the music that night, she is almost certain her father was playing Bach. With this issue we say a fond farewell (or at least, "See you 'round the hallways") to Cindy Thomas, our editorial coordinator and social planner extraordinaire for the past two years. And we welcome to the CHB staff Becky Custer, who has provided administrative support to our sister pubs Christianity Today and Books & Culture for eight years, and who will lend royal dignity to our humble crew—she can trace her family genealogy back to Charlemagne. Oh yes, and she sings in the shower. A round of applause for Calvin Stapert, our expert consultant who inspired us and provided us with a wealth of information about Bach. Next issue: The Gnostics: Who they were, why the early church attacked them, and how their teaching lives on. Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History & Biography magazine. Issue 95: The Gospel According to J.S. Bach To the Glory of God Alone Fueled by his Lutheran faith, J. S. Bach devoted his life to creating music for refreshment, proclamation, and praise. Calvin R. Stapert In the 16th century, a baker named Veit Bach fled Hungary because of his Lutheran beliefs. He settled in the small town of Wechmar in Thuringia in central Germany. His descendants survived the Thirty Years' War and spread throughout Thuringia over the next century. They became so prevalent in musical positions in towns and churches that the name "Bach" came to be synonymous with "musician." In a genealogy compiled in 1735, one of those descendants wrote with a mixture of loving amusement and pride about Veit: "He found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern [a wire-strung plucked instrument], which he took with him even into the mill and played upon while the grinding was going on.