Reflections on the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
'The composer took a single great theme and subjected it to contrapuntal variations of immeasurable variety, poetry and imagination.'
'It seems an extraordinary thought but Bach almost certainly never heard the B minor Mass complete.'
'Of all Bach's music, the cantatas are particularly rich in tunes and repeated motifs.'
'Bach is Dance music - even in pieces like the preludes and fugues there are minuets, bourees, gigues, passepieds..'
'I find Bach consoling, it's almost like meditation.'
'All that Bach is doing is telling, in the most faithful and sublime of ways, the Christian story, and he does it brilliantly.'
'The mind drifts and, suddenly, we are at the end and the aria is returning, but now poignantly different.'
'I thought 'it's got to be on a harpsichord, anything else is a violation of history' and then I heard the Gould recording and said 'forget it'! '
'Organists were required to invent fantasias and fugues on hymn tunes as part of the church service'
'It seems Bach's influence is as all pervasive in jazz as it is in the classical world'
'The word translates from German as 'chapel master', and refers to the most senior (and highly paid) musician at a court'
'Leipzig had prosperous, ambitious inhabitants, who demanded church music of the highest quality'
'Frederick wanted to humiliate the man he called "Old Bach"'.
'Had Bach been a numerological practitioner he could not have taken the religious oath required of all pastors.'
'Like so much of Bach's great music, the Christmas Oratorio takes us on a journey'
'One of the most significant aspects of the drama of this Passion is of course what it does to our perception of ourselves'.
'Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?'
'I think Bach does for me some of the things which religion does for other people'
'For some reason I thought of space - the planets, the solar system and way way beyond.'
'We have lost kaleidoscope of colour in which every key had a different character'.
'A summation of Bach's musical and spiritual thinking on the liturgy'
Veit marked 'the beginning of music in his descendants'
'We must remember that Bach was merely another 20-year-old wanderer at the time'
'Bach is always a young person for me, someone who is energetic in his music making...who is flesh and blood'
'Frequenting a coffee house has many of the overtones that clubbing might have these days'
Browse the complete list of works, and read intros to each of the genre areas
Find out more about the man and his music
On the BBC
On the Web
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites
Listen Live
help
