The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.
- J.S. Bach
There is an old fashioned Lutheran view of Bach as the "Fifth Evangelist". 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, "This chapter is the true foundation of all God-pleasing music." At 2 Chronicles 5:13 (which speaks of temple musicians praising God), he noted, "At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence."
The cantatas are of course only one of many facets of Bach's oeuvre; but their sheer quantity and quality, encompassing his entire career, provide an inexhaustible fount of inspiration. Christianity is central to Bach's music, not just because his was a deeply religious time and place, but because only a composer who saw music-making literally as worship could have produced works of such a kind and on such a scale. Bach annotated his copy of the Calov Bible, now preserved in Leipzig, with 348 marginalia, including the following, which might serve as his credo: "NB. Wherever there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present."
Bach the musician was indeed a Christian who lived with the Bible. Besides being the baroque era's greatest organist and composer, and one of the most productive geniuses in the history of Western music, Bach was also a theologian who just happened to work with a keyboard.
