Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer of the "Christmas Mass"

His musical legacy — In musical composition Bach took a stride that carried him to the summit of glory, especially in sacred music, whose level he helped raise to the highest ranks. The curious thing about Bach is that it never once occurred to him that the work he was doing deserved esteem, for he felt in the depths of his soul that a higher will was guiding and inspiring him; and for the same reason he paid no attention to people's opinions of his music.

Bach drew his music from a heavenly light shining on the horizon of his life and filling it with joy, gladness, and love. It is now commonly said among people that Bach was a saint, but nothing of the kind was said in his lifetime. Such is the case of every genius: people do not know his worth while he is among them, but when he departs they feel the void he has left, and then they begin to search out his works.

For six generations the Bach family took music as its profession and its pastime. It is told of Johann's grandfather that he was a baker who played the cittern well... playing to the sound of the millstones in the mill when he went to sell his bread. Johann's father, too, was a professional musician, and it was he who taught him the rudiments of violin playing in his boyhood.

His early years — Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, and received his first musical instruction at his father's hands; but the days did not grant him long: his father died before he reached the age of ten, and his care was entrusted to his brother Christopher, who encouraged him to learn music but who, for some reason, begrudged him the use of one of his music books containing pieces by famous composers. So Johann would seize the opportunity when his brother had gone to bed, go to where the book lay in his cabinet, and copy from it what he pleased by moonlight, for fear of being found out had he lit the candle.

When he reached fifteen he felt it was now his duty to see to his own livelihood and become independent of Christopher, so he joined the choir of a church, which opened the way for him to receive higher musical training and to practice the organ. Not three years had passed in his work with the choir before he had become skilled at playing the organ, and he was appointed the church's own organist. It is related that during this employment news reached him of a certain musician; he took a month's leave and set out to that

master — but instead of staying with him one month, he stayed four.

His marriage — In 1707 he married his cousin, Maria Barbara, who bore him eight children, of whom Friedrich became famous. One year after his marriage he joined the ensemble of the Duke of Weimar, and during this period he was able to devote himself to the study of Italian music, which had begun to spread in German circles — especially the music of Vivaldi.

Johann's fame spread as a performer and as a composer of pieces of a religious cast, and he met with honor and esteem wherever he went; but the greatest esteem he met with in his lifetime was at the hands of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

Bach's wife died in 1720 and he grieved for her deeply, but before long he married one of his pupils. We know of Bach's love for his second wife through the beautiful melodies she inspired in him; his second wife bore him twelve children, bringing the total of his children to twenty.

His stay with the Duke of Weimar was not long; he left him to join a certain prince devoted to music, and him too he soon left to join a church choir — "the choir of the Leipzig church."

His devotion to composition

This period counts among the most brilliant of his life, for during it he wrote the most magnificent of what he has left us, on which his fame in the world rests. Bach's style in composition had matured and his phrases had been refined. But in the meantime he faced severe difficulties and material straits, and he had to work night and day to provide for his children's food and schooling. He gave lessons and played at funerals alongside his work, and he wrote to a friend, saying: "When deaths are many, my income rises; but when the weather turns mild, deaths grow few and my income falls!" Yet never for a single day did he cease composing.

What filled the heart of the great Bach with love was enough to make his life happy and to make his home and family the wellspring of his joy and contentment. Despair never found its way into Bach's soul: he went on composing even after he lost his sight, three years before his death!

In 1749 he underwent an operation on his eyes that destroyed what remained of his vision, and not long afterward he died of heart failure in 1750.

Among his masterpieces: the Christmas Mass

Bach's works are the dictionary of all music, for their abundance and their excellence, and because he introduced into music principles still observed at the present time, especially in the field of the multiplicity of voices — Polyphony — within a single piece.

The beauty of Bach's music lifts you to sublimity and imagination; you cannot hide your intense joy as you listen to one of his pieces, and a spiritual serenity sweeps over you. Bach wrote his music to quench the thirst that stirred within his soul. His music is a set of confessions of thoughts he chose to express in sounds instead of letters; the expression came out simple and strong, its splendor never fading, its freshness never growing old.

Bach's most magnificent works were in sacred music, and among his immortal pieces is the "Christmas Mass" — Mass in B Minor — which tells the story of the Nativity in six parts:

The child Jesus was born in a manger; then his star appeared to shepherds keeping watch over their sheep and cattle, and they were afraid when they saw the star. An angel appeared to them and brought them the good tidings, saying: "Fear not... for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Whereupon a company of angels burst forth in praise: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will toward men." After that the Magi came from the East, led by the star, to worship the King of Kings. News of them reached Herod, who summoned them; but what they told him made him tremble with fear. He asked them to return to him after they had seen the child; but they went to where the child was with his mother Mary, "and they fell down and worshipped him; then they opened their treasures and presented unto him gifts: gold, and frankincense, and myrrh," and they returned whence they had come without passing by Herod.

The listener finds great difficulty on hearing the Mass for the first time, for it is complex in its music and its style. And here we must not forget that it was written in an age in which music was still at a stage far removed from stability and perfection.

The subject on which the Mass rests is simple, taken from a few verses of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; but Bach's genius was able to create from it an immortal musical masterpiece. And often the musical idea outshines the original idea! One notices, too, the variety of the facets of the composition: at one moment you feel reverence and a quiet splendor, and at another an overwhelming tempest seizes you as you listen. Yet with all this you cannot but come away with a single idea binding the parts to one another — the idea of "Victory," which the newborn brings to the world!..