Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is, for much of the West, the greatest composer of Christian sacred music who ever lived. A Lutheran cantor at St Thomas's Church in Leipzig for twenty-seven years, he wrote most of his output for the liturgy: a cantata almost every Sunday, a Passion every Good Friday, chorales, motets and organ pieces meant to carry the prayer of a congregation. His music is not a pious decoration added to worship: it is an act of faith, a preaching in sounds.[1][2]
Bach was not Catholic: he belonged to the orthodox Lutheranism of 18th-century Germany, which he knew down to its theological controversies. Yet his name constantly recurs in the mouths of popes, theologians and Catholic faithful, and one of his last great works — the Messe en si mineur (Mass in B minor) — is a setting of the entire Ordinary of the Roman Mass. It is this singular place of Bach in the Christian tradition, beyond the confessional divide, that this article explores.
"The ultimate aim of all music should be nothing other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." — Johann Sebastian Bach, rules for figured bass, c. 1738[3]
This article does not repeat the doctrine of the sacred image, set out elsewhere: it extends it to another art, music. Just as the icon is a "theology in colours", Bach's output is a theology in sounds — a way of making audible what faith confesses. For the foundation of all liturgical art, see the theology of the icon.
A "sacred image" made of sounds?
This article appears in a section devoted to sacred images. Placing a musician here is no mistake: it is a reminder that Christian art is not limited to what the eye sees, and that Bach's music fulfils, for the ear, the same function as the icon for the gaze.
Sound as icon: making the invisible present
The icon, the stained-glass window and the fresco seek to make present the mystery of salvation in perceptible form, in order to lead beyond the perceptible. Great liturgical music does exactly the same thing in the order of time and sound: it does not "talk about" God from the outside, it brings the listener into the mystery it unfolds. When the choir of the Passion selon saint Matthieu (St Matthew Passion) weeps over Christ's death, or when the Sanctus of the Messe en si (Mass in B minor) sends voices wheeling in the praise of the seraphim, the music does not describe faith: it gives it to be experienced.
That is why Bach's music can be called a sounding icon. It obeys the same logic of the Incarnation as the theology of the image: because the Word became flesh, the visible and the audible can carry the invisible without betraying it. Sacred music is not a detour towards God; it is one of his paths.
Bach, heir to all Christian sacred art
Bach inherits more than a thousand years of Christian chant. Before him, the Church had already given worship Gregorian chant, then the sacred polyphony of the Renaissance, brought to perfection by masters such as Palestrina. Bach rejects none of this heritage: he absorbs it and carries it further, joining to it the Lutheran chorale, the art of the fugue and the science of the Baroque orchestra. On these neighbouring traditions, see Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony and Palestrina and the musical reform.
A Lutheran in a Catholic encyclopaedia
Why does a Catholic encyclopaedia devote an article to a Lutheran composer? Because beauty and truth do not stop at confessional borders. The Catholic Church recognises that separated Christians retain a real share of the common heritage — Scripture, baptism, faith in the dead and risen Christ — and that the Holy Spirit also acts through them.[4] Bach sang this common heart of the Christian faith with a depth that few Catholic authors have equalled. Recognising this does not erase the doctrinal divergences of Lutheranism; it honours what, in him, belongs to the whole Christian tradition. The article will keep this twofold honesty: stating Bach's greatness without forcibly Catholicising him.
Who was Johann Sebastian Bach?
Bach's life is almost entirely that of a Church musician. He never left a small region of central Germany, never composed an opera, and spent most of his career supplying, week after week, the music that worship required.
The child of Eisenach, the orphan of Ohrdruf
Bach was born on 21 March 1685 in Eisenach, in Thuringia, into the most famous dynasty of musicians in history: for two centuries, the name "Bach" was almost synonymous with "musician" in the region. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, directed the town's music and gave him his first lessons.[5][6] But the child lost his mother in 1694, then his father in 1695: orphaned at ten years old, he was taken in at Ohrdruf by his elder brother Johann Christoph, an organist and pupil of Pachelbel, who taught him the keyboard.[7]
This childhood marked by death is no mere anecdote: Bach knew mourning very early — he would also lose his first wife, Maria Barbara, and half of his twenty children in infancy. His sacred music, which looks death in the face with shattering hope, was born of a life in which death was never abstract.
The young organist: Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, Köthen
Now a virtuoso organist, Bach held a series of posts: Arnstadt (1703), Mühlhausen (1707), then the court of Weimar (1708-1717), where he composed much of his organ output. At Köthen (1717-1723), in the service of a Calvinist prince who required no liturgical music, he turned to instrumental music: it was there that the Concertos brandebourgeois (Brandenburg Concertos) and part of the Clavier bien tempéré (Well-Tempered Clavier) were born.[8] But Bach, a convinced Lutheran, struggled with being deprived of church music. In 1723, he applied for the most demanding post in all of Protestant Germany.
The Cantor of Leipzig (1723-1750)
In 1723, Bach became Cantor of St Thomas's School (Thomaskantor) and director of music for the city of Leipzig. The duties were crushing: he had to train the choirboys, teach, and above all supply the music for the city's four main Lutheran churches, including the Thomaskirche and the Nikolaikirche.[9][10] In practice, this meant a new cantata almost every Sunday and every major feast, a Passion every Good Friday, and the music for all the solemnities of the liturgical year.
He would hold this post for twenty-seven years, until his death on 28 July 1750. It was in Leipzig that Bach wrote almost all of his sacred vocal music: the cantatas, the Passions, the Oratorio de Noël (Christmas Oratorio), the Magnificat and, at the very end, the Messe en si mineur (Mass in B minor). Having gone blind, he died after eye surgery, dictating, according to tradition, one last chorale.
- 21 mars 1685Birth in Eisenach
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Thuringia, into a dynasty of musicians. His father directed the town's music.
- 1694-1695Orphaned at ten
He lost his mother and then his father, and was taken in by his elder brother, organist at Ohrdruf, who taught him the keyboard.
- 1708-1717Organist at the Weimar court
The period of the great organ works. Bach became a recognised virtuoso and composer.
- 1717-1723Chapel master at Köthen
In the service of a Calvinist prince, he wrote mostly instrumental music (Brandenburg Concertos).
- 1723Cantor of St Thomas's in Leipzig
He took up the most demanding post in Protestant Germany: the music of Leipzig's churches.
- 1727The St Matthew Passion
First performance, on Good Friday, of one of the summits of all Western sacred music.
- 1749The Mass in B minor
Bach completed his setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Mass, the sum of all his craft.
- 28 juillet 1750Death in Leipzig
Having gone blind, Bach died at 65, after twenty-seven years of service at St Thomas's.
An ardent Lutheran faith
For a long time, people tried to make Bach a purely "abstract" genius, a mathematician of sounds indifferent to the religious meaning of his texts. The documents say the opposite: Bach was a convinced Lutheran Christian, well versed in theology, who read Scripture pen in hand and worked at his music as a service to God.[11][12]
The Calov Bible: Bach as reader of Scripture
The most moving proof of Bach's faith is his personal study Bible: the three volumes of the biblical commentary by Abraham Calov, Lutheran theologian of Wittenberg (Die heilige Bibel nach S. Herrn D. Martini Lutheri (The Holy Bible According to Mr. Dr. Martin Luther), Wittenberg, 1681–1682). Bach signed each volume in 1733, and covered it with 348 marks of his own hand — underlinings, corrections, marginal annotations. Rediscovered in the 20th century, this Bible is now kept in the library of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis (Missouri), authenticated by analysis of the handwriting and inks.[13][14]
These annotations open a unique window onto the composer's inner life. Where Scripture speaks of the Temple's music, Bach notes comments of direct spiritual significance. At the First Book of Chronicles (chapter 25), where David institutes the Temple singers, he writes:
"This chapter is the true foundation of all church music pleasing to God." — J. S. Bach, annotation in his Calov Bible, circa 1733[15]
And at the Second Book of Chronicles (5:13), where the glory of the Lord fills the Temple as the music resounds, he inscribes in the margin this now-famous sentence:
"N.B. Where there is devotional music, God is always present with His grace." — J. S. Bach, annotation at 2 Chronicles 5:13[16][17]
For Bach, liturgical music is therefore not an ornament: it is a place of God's presence, exactly as the Catholic Church says of sacred art in the broad sense.
"J.J." and "S.D.G.": prayer at the threshold of the score
Bach's most revealing habit comes down to a few letters. At the top of his manuscripts, before writing the first note, he often traced "J.J." — the abbreviation of the Latin Jesu Juva, "Jesus, help me." And at the bottom of the finished score, he inscribed "S.D.G." — Soli Deo Gloria, "to God alone the glory."[18][19]
These two initials frame the act of composing as a prayer: one begins by asking Christ's help, one ends by giving everything back to the glory of God, and not to one's own. The musical work itself becomes a liturgy. Soli Deo Gloria is indeed one of the great watchwords of the Lutheran Reformation; but the intuition it expresses — that all received beauty must return to its author — belongs to the whole Christian tradition.
"The glory of God and the refreshment of the soul"
Bach also set down this conviction in so many words in a pedagogical text. In his figured-bass rules written for his pupils (circa 1738), he defines the ultimate end of all musical art thus:
"As with all music, the end and aim of figured bass must be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul; where this is not kept in mind, there is no true music, but only a diabolical din and racket." — J. S. Bach, Rules and Principles for Four-Part Accompaniment, circa 1738[20]
The sentence is striking: for Bach, music that does not serve God is not inferior music, it is noise. The hierarchy is clear — beauty has meaning only when referred back to its source.
Bach's sacred music
The immense majority of Bach's output is religious, and the largest part was written for concrete liturgical use. A few great bodies of work stand out.
The cantatas: a sermon in music every Sunday
The heart of Bach's work in Leipzig was the church cantata: a work of about twenty minutes for soloists, choir, and orchestra, performed during the Sunday service, in close connection with the day's readings and sermon. Bach composed several complete annual cycles of them; more than two hundred survive today, out of a total that probably exceeded three hundred.[21][22]
Each cantata is a musical meditation on the Gospel of the day: it comments on, extends, and interiorizes the proclaimed Word. Far from an entertainment, it is part of the proclamation of the faith — a true sermon in music. Some have become universally famous, such as Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme ("Wake Up, the Voice Calls to Us", BWV 140), a meditation on the parable of the wise virgins and the Bridegroom's coming.
The chorale, backbone of sung faith
At the base of almost all Bach's sacred music lies the chorale: the strophic hymn in the German language that the entire Lutheran congregation knew by heart. Luther had wanted the people to sing their faith; Bach inherits this treasure of melodies and harmonizes them with unequaled skill — his four-part chorale harmonizations are still today the taught model of musical composition.
The chorale is not mere material: it carries a text of faith that listeners recognize immediately. When Bach brings back, at the summit of the Passion selon saint Matthieu (St Matthew Passion), the melody of O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden ("O Head Covered in Blood and Wounds"), he is not only making beautiful music: he places in the congregation's mouth its own confession before the suffering Christ. Music becomes collective prayer.
The Passions: St Matthew and St John
Bach's two surviving Passions rank among the highest achievements of all Christian art. The Passion selon saint Jean (St John Passion) (BWV 245) was premiered on Good Friday 1724; the Passion selon saint Matthieu (St Matthew Passion) (BWV 244), a monumental work for double choir and double orchestra, on Good Friday 1727 at the Thomaskirche.[23][24]
A Bach Passion is not a concert: it is a liturgy of the Word. The Gospel account of Christ's death, sung by the Evangelist, is interspersed with meditative arias and chorales that draw the listener in. At the heart of the Passion selon saint Matthieu (St Matthew Passion), in its very text, the Gospel resounds plainly:
"From the sixth hour, darkness came over all the land, until the ninth hour. [...] But Jesus, crying out again with a loud voice, yielded up his spirit." — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 27:45–50, set to music by Bach[25]
The 1727 premiere was first met with relative silence; it took the revival sparked by Felix Mendelssohn, who conducted the work in 1829, for Europe to rediscover this summit and, with it, all of Bach's sacred music.[26]
The Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, and the motets
Bach also set to music the other great moments of the liturgical year. The Oratorio de Noël (Christmas Oratorio) (BWV 248, 1734) is a sequence of six cantatas for the Christmas season. The Magnificat (BWV 243) sings the Virgin Mary's canticle — "My soul magnifies the Lord" — with radiant jubilation. And the great motets, such as Jesu, meine Freude ("Jesus, My Joy", BWV 227), bring the meditation on death and life in Christ to a white heat. The Magnificat, the Marian text par excellence, shows how fully Bach could embrace accents that Catholic devotion instantly recognizes as its own.
The organ: the Orgelbüchlein and the prayer of the chorales
Bach was above all, in his lifetime, famous as an organist. Much of his organ output is liturgical too: his chorale preludes musically comment on the hymns of the year. In the collection of the Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book"), each piece meditates on a chorale melody according to the liturgical season — from Advent (Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, "Come Now, Saviour of the Heathen") to Easter. Bach's organ does not make "religious" music in the vague sense: it too preaches, through the melodies the congregation carries in its heart.
The Mass in B Minor: a Lutheran on the threshold of the Catholic Mass
Of all Bach's works, only one sets the whole of the Roman Catholic Mass Ordinary to music: the Mass in B Minor (Messe en si mineur, BWV 232). That a Lutheran cantor composed a complete Latin Mass is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of Christian music — and a sign of the deep unity of tradition beyond the ruptures of the 16th century.
Genesis of an impossible work
The Mass in B Minor was not written in one go. In 1733, Bach offered the Elector of Saxony — recently converted to Catholicism and now King of Poland — a Kyrie and a Gloria in Latin, hoping to obtain a title at the Dresden court.[27][28] Yet one often-forgotten reality must be kept in mind: the Lutheran liturgy of Leipzig, especially on great feasts, kept Latin and sang the Kyrie and the Gloria. A short Mass (missa), reduced to these two parts, was common to both confessions.[29]
It was only toward the end of his life, around 1749, that Bach completed the whole — adding the Credo (which he entitled Symbolum Nicenum), the Sanctus, the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei — to form a complete setting of the Mass Ordinary.[30] The work, the sum of all his craft, was never performed in full in his lifetime: its first documented complete performance dates to 1859.[31]
An ecumenical work before its time
| Part of the Ordinary | Text set to music | Presence in worship |
|---|---|---|
| Kyrie | Kyrie eleison (Greek) | Shared by the Lutheran worship of Leipzig and the Roman Mass |
| Gloria | Gloria in excelsis Deo | Sung in Latin in both traditions on great feasts |
| Credo (Symbolum Nicenum) | Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed | Profession of faith common to the whole Church |
| Sanctus | Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus | Heart of the Eucharistic prayer everywhere |
| Agnus Dei | Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi | Invocation to Christ, Lamb of God |
As this table shows, the text Bach sets to music is no Lutheran novelty: it is the oldest and most shared core of Christian prayer, held in common far beyond confessional boundaries. In setting the Nicene Creed, the seraphic Sanctus and the Agnus Dei to music, Bach sings the faith of the councils, professed together by Catholics and Lutherans.
The result is a work many regard as the greatest monument of sacred music ever composed. The Crucifixus descends into the hell of Christ's death; the Et resurrexit bursts forth in an explosion of light; the Sanctus, written for six voices, seems bent on exhausting every possible jubilation of the creature before its God. A Lutheran gave the Catholic Mass its highest musical expression.
Bach and the Catholic tradition
The Catholic reception of Bach is one of the finest proofs that beauty can be a meeting place for separated Christians. Far from distrusting this Protestant cantor, great Catholic theologians and pastors have seen in him a witness to the truth of the faith.
"Whoever has heard this knows that the faith is true"
The most famous testimony comes from Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. When he was Archbishop of Munich, he attended a concert in 1981 at which Leonard Bernstein conducted a Bach cantata, in memory of the conductor Karl Richter. Ratzinger was sitting next to the Lutheran bishop Johannes Hanselmann. He later recounted the moment:
*"At the end of the last note of one of the great cantatas of the Cantor of St. Thomas, we looked at each other spontaneously, and just as spontaneously we said to one another: 'Whoever has heard this knows that the faith is true.'" * — Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), Un chant nouveau pour le Seigneur (A New Song for the Lord), 1995[32]
For Ratzinger, a theologian of beauty, this experience was no aesthetic sentimentality: the inner greatness of Bach's music makes credible the faith that gave birth to it. Such splendour cannot rest on emptiness; it bears witness, in its own way, to the reality of what it sings. That a Catholic cardinal and a Lutheran bishop shared the same insight says much about the ecumenical reach of this art.
Beauty as a path to God (via pulchritudinis)
This Catholic view of Bach is rooted in an ancient conviction: beauty is a path to God (via pulchritudinis). Saint John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists (Lettre aux artistes, 1999), recalled that authentic art, by making the invisible visible — or audible — serves the Gospel and opens hearts to the mystery.[33] Bach's music is its purest illustration: it does not prove, it gives a foretaste; it does not argue, it makes one adore.
"Beauty is the key to the mystery and it points to transcendence. It is an invitation to savour life and to dream of the future." — Saint John Paul II, Letter to Artists (Lettre aux artistes), 1999, no. 16[34]
Bach in today's Christian prayer
Today, Bach's music is played and sung in Catholic churches around the world, in spiritual concerts, retreats, funerals, times of adoration. Without denying any confessional differences, the Church recognises in this work a common treasure of Christendom, able to lift toward God believers of every tradition — and even to touch those who think themselves unbelievers. Bach is not only the heritage of Lutheranism: he is a gift to the whole Church.
Why listen to Bach today?
In a world saturated with noise and disposable music, Bach's work recalls what music can be at its highest: not entertainment, but a path to God. It unites what our age separates — rigour and feeling, craft and prayer, intellect and heart. Before a cantata or the Mass in B Minor, the listener does not merely contemplate a genius: he is led to the threshold of the mystery.
That is why Bach keeps his place in a reflection on Christian sacred art, alongside the icon, the stained-glass window and the cathedral. All say the same thing in different languages: that beauty, when it is true, does not stop at itself but points beyond itself. The motto Bach wrote at the bottom of his scores remains the best key to his work, and to all Christian art: Soli Deo Gloria — to God alone be glory.
To go further
Related Ignispedia articles
- The Theology of the Icon — why the Church venerates sacred art: the foundation of the Incarnation, which Bach's music extends into the realm of sound.
- Gregorian Chant — the founding chant of Christian liturgy, the first of the great sacred musical languages.
- Sacred Polyphony — the vocal art of the Renaissance, which Bach inherited and carried further.
- Palestrina and the Musical Reform — the master of Catholic polyphony, Bach's counter-model and forefather.
- Mozart and the Catholic Mass — another great genius in the service of the liturgy, a generation after Bach.
- The Stabat Mater — the hymn of the Sorrowful Mother, another great text set to music by countless Christian composers.
Principal sources
- Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, W. W. Norton, New York, 2000 — the reference biography.
- John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, Allen Lane, London, 2013 — a study of sacred music by a great performer.
- Jaroslav Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1986 — Bach's theology.
- Robin A. Leaver, J. S. Bach and Scripture: Glosses from the Calov Bible Commentary, Concordia, St. Louis, 1985 — Bach's biblical annotations.
- Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel & Christoph Wolff, The New Bach Reader, W. W. Norton, New York, 1998 — collection of period documents.
- Joseph Ratzinger, Un chant nouveau pour le Seigneur (A New Song for the Lord), 1995 — theological reflection on sacred music and Bach.
Notes and References
Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, W. W. Norton, New York, 2000, ISBN 978-0-393-32256-9: the reference biography — origins in Eisenach, schooling in Ohrdruf and Lüneburg, posts in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen, appointment as Thomaskantor in 1723, scope of the cantata and Passion output in Leipzig.
1 5 8 9 21 24John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, Allen Lane / Knopf, 2013, ISBN 978-0-375-41529-6: a study of Bach's sacred vocal music by a conductor, stressing the liturgical and theological function of the cantatas and Passions.
2J. S. Bach, Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen Spielen des General-Bass ("Rules and principles for four-part accompaniment of the thoroughbass"), a teaching document for his pupils, circa 1738. The text concludes: « Und soll wie aller Music, also auch des General Basses Finis und End Ursache anders nicht, als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemüths seyn. Wo dieses nicht in Acht genommen wird, da ists keine eigentliche Music, sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleyer. » Translated in Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, and in The New Bach Reader, corresponding doc.
3 20On the Catholic Church's recognition of the elements of sanctification present in separated Christian communities (Scripture, baptism, faith in Christ), cf. Second Vatican Council, decree Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), no. 3, and John Paul II, encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995). This foundation makes it possible to honour the Christian depth of Bach's work without glossing over the doctrinal divergences of Lutheranism.
4Johann Sebastian Bach — chronology, Bach-Archiv Leipzig (bach-leipzig.de): born 21 March 1685 in Eisenach, son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the town's music director; orphaned in 1694-1695, taken in at Ohrdruf by his elder brother Johann Christoph, organist; appointed cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig in 1723; died 28 July 1750.
6 7 10Jaroslav Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1986: analysis of Bach as a Lutheran theologian in his own right, reading Scripture and shaping his music as preaching; importance of the J.J. and S.D.G. inscriptions and of the Calov Bible.
11 19Robin A. Leaver, J. S. Bach and Scripture: Glosses from the Calov Bible Commentary, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1985: edition and commentary of Bach's annotations in his Calov Bible. At 1 Chronicles 25, Bach notes that this chapter is "the true foundation of all church music pleasing to God"; at 2 Chronicles 5:13, he writes in the margin: "NB. Bey einer andächtigen Musig ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden-Gegenwart" ("Where there is devotional music, God is always present with his grace").
12 14 15 16Calov Bible: Bach's personal copy of Abraham Calov's biblical commentary, Die heilige Bibel nach S. Herrn D. Martini Lutheri Deutscher Dolmetschung, Wittenberg, 1681-1682, 3 volumes. Bach signed each volume in 1733 and made 348 marks in it (underlinings, corrections, marginal annotations), authenticated by analysis of the handwriting and inks. The volumes have been kept since 1938 in the library of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (Missouri). Cf. the "Calov Bible" notice, and Robin A. Leaver, op. cit.
13 17Bach's handwritten inscriptions: at the top of many manuscripts, J.J. (Jesu Juva, "Jesus, help me"); at the bottom of finished scores, S.D.G. (Soli Deo Gloria, "to God alone be glory"). Soli Deo Gloria is one of the great principles (solae) of the Reformation. Cf. The New Bach Reader (below) and J. Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians.
18On the cantatas: in Leipzig Bach composed several annual cycles (Jahrgänge) of church cantatas tied to the Sunday readings; more than two hundred survive, out of an estimated output of more than three hundred. Cf. C. Wolff, The Learned Musician, chapter on the early Leipzig years, and the BWV catalogue.
22St Matthew Passion (Matthäus-Passion), BWV 244, for double choir and double orchestra, libretto by Picander (C. F. Henrici); probably premiered on Good Friday 11 April 1727 at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, for the vesper service, in two parts framing the sermon. The St John Passion, BWV 245, had been premiered on Good Friday 1724. Cf. the "St Matthew Passion" notice, Encyclopædia Britannica and Bach-Archiv Leipzig.
23 25The St Matthew Passion fell into relative oblivion after Bach's death; Felix Mendelssohn conducted a noted performance of it in Berlin in 1829, the starting point of the great 19th-century revival (Bach-Renaissance) that restored Bach to his leading place. Cf. C. Wolff, op. cit.
26Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: complete setting of the Roman Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei) by a Lutheran composer. The Lutheran liturgy of Leipzig kept the use of Latin and sang Kyrie and Gloria on great feasts; a missa reduced to these two parts was common to Lutheran worship as to Catholic practice. The work was never performed in full in Bach's lifetime; its first documented complete performance dates to 1859. Cf. the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (bach.org) and Boston Baroque notices.
27 29 31Genesis of the Mass in B Minor: in 1733, Bach presented a Kyrie and a Gloria (a Missa) to Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in hopes of a title as composer to the Dresden court. Around 1748-1749, at the end of his life, he completed the work with the Symbolum Nicenum (Credo), the Sanctus (composed as early as 1724), the Benedictus, the Osanna and the Agnus Dei, forming the complete Mass. Cf. C. Wolff, The Learned Musician, and the BWV 232 notices.
28 30Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), Ein neues Lied für den Herrn (1995), English trans. A New Song for the Lord, Crossroad, 1996, p. 141: account of a Bach concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein in Munich (1981), in memory of the conductor Karl Richter, at which Ratzinger, then Archbishop of Munich, sat next to the Lutheran bishop Johannes Hanselmann. At the last note of a cantata, both said to each other: "Whoever has heard this knows that the faith is true." Hanselmann was a figure in the ecumenical dialogue that led to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999).
32John Paul II, Letter to Artists (Lettre aux artistes, 4 April 1999), no. 16, on vatican.va: beauty as via pulchritudinis, "the key to the mystery and it points to transcendence"; authentic art, by making the invisible perceptible, serves the revelation of the Christian mystery and the encounter with God.
33 34