The Idolization of Bach: He was not God

In some ways, I miss how I used to understand Bach. I learned several pieces from the Anna Magdalena in my early years as a pianist, but my teachers did not express to me much regarding Bach. I experienced little effort from others to humanize Bach. That is, until I learned my first prelude from the Well-Tempered Klavier, in B-flat minor, Book 1. Before I decided to study that piece, my teacher encouraged me to listen to the entire Well-Tempered Klavier, and more importantly, to listen to different recordings. 

I did not truly understand the love for Bach until my teacher humanized him for me. I remember her telling me that Bach had 20 children, most of whom did not live to see adulthood. She told me that Bach had been traveling for work, came home, and found that his wife had passed away and was already buried. This information was delivered to me at a time when I had experienced an unexpected and violent loss of a family member, making the empathy for him more tangible. 

I had found a quote from Bach, which essentially states that the music he plays is not his, but is God’s work. He may play, but the music is God’s. 

Essentially, the historical context gave me a gateway to understand the emotional significance of Bach, and I have connected with him ever since. I understood Bach to be a person who endured life-altering loss for many decades, which began as an orphan at 10 years old. The exposure I had conveyed Bach as a human being who was a genius at expressing beauty and depth. 

It wasn’t until I began studying at a university that I was exposed to the idolization of Bach that had been ingrained in the perspective of teachers. 

I wanted to learn about more stories of Bach, credible and evidence-based; I am not interested in the mythology of Bach. I would argue that how Bach composes is like a language; there are grammatical structures that come naturally to him once there is a subject he wants to elaborate on. There is an aesthetic to the language that is learnable, not mythical. 

The classical music community considers the German composers to be the elite. Progress is associated with value. And if you didn’t make progress, you had to define an era to be considered worthy. Bach did not innovate like other composers in the sense of forward innovation, but he defined the Baroque era. Because there is a lopsided bias toward German composers, Markus Rathey, in his article, “A Divided Country–A Divided Bach: The Cantor-Kapellmeister Controversy and The Cold War,” discusses how the rediscovery of Bach and the cultural waves of obsession shift the portrait. Interestingly, Rathey states that the consistent cultural definition of Bach is his “German-ness” and how he exemplified “German values.”

However, I believe that perspective can only be applicable in Germany since he is a source of — arguably nationalistic — pride. Even Mendelssohn, who rediscovered Bach and gave a platform to remain a long-lasting music figure, did not do it for the sake of “German-ness.”

In my other studies of classical music, especially in the Soviet Union, his nationality is hardly brought up at all. In the United States, his nationality is mentioned only in passing, unless a teacher finds his nationality to be of moral significance. Additionally, Germany was not Germany as we have understood it for nearly 200 years; Bach would not recognize his country.

The idea that Bach is precise and that Germany values precision, I believe, is a caricaturization of an entire population and misrepresents Bach as a representative of Germany rather than a cultural music form that expanded across the entire continent.

Robert Marshall, in “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography,” expresses frustration that Bach lived a simple life, that he did not have name-worthy enemies, friends, and teachers. To me, this reveals the assumption with musicology that if we know who someone’s teacher was, then we can assume the worth of the recipient's quality of received education. We make assumptions based on someone’s associates in classical music history; there is emphasis on the drama rather than the collaboration between people. I understand that names are essential in history; they make the research far easier to delve into.

But part of the issues I see with many of the articles I glanced through before deciding on three to discuss is the lack of primary resources. People are quoting each other more frequently than the material that they are basing it on. I agree with Marshall that Bach needs to be perceived as human, but he does not explicitly give a reason as to why that is the case; however, he does explain that his music does develop with complexity over time. Although Marshall’s article is thoroughly researched and he did provide a chronology, especially within the first 10 years after he became an orphan.

Friedrich Blume, even in the mid-20th century, at the height of idolizing Bach, acknowledged that Bach was largely self-taught in his article, “J. S. Bach’s Youth.” What isn’t acknowledged is that some people have great musical intuition, and in an environment where you are allowed to experiment and develop, of course, you create your own voice. My problem with Blume is that the article I was exposed to does not cite any sources, and he draws many assumptions about Bach’s perspective and mindset, even questioning his religious devoutness. 

I think the scholarly narrative of Bach will struggle to change to a more authentic and human representation if there remains an infatuation with the values and stereotypes associated with Germany. I came to understand Bach on an emotional level, but I do hold doubts about the genuineness of other people’s appreciation for him aside from the expectation that they should.

The intentionality of Bach’s music, I do not think, should be relegated to his nationality. And I do not think it should be attributed to a prodigy label, but rather a person who experienced life in fullness, who had an ear for aesthetic beauty, and had the intellect to portray it.

(Portrait of Bach)

Blume, Friedrich, and Wilburn W. Newcomb. “J. S. Bach’s Youth.” The Musical Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1968): 1–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/741080.

Marshall, Robert L. “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography.” The Musical Quarterly 84, no. 3 (2000): 497–525. http://www.jstor.org/stable/742590.

Rathey, Markus. “A Divided Country–A Divided Bach: The Cantor-Kapellmeister Controversy and The Cold War.” Bach 47, no. 2 (2016): 1–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.22513/bach.47.2.0001.