“Music and the Reformation and Johann Sebastian Bach”, A Closer Look by Susan Braams

“Music I have always loved. He who knows music has a good nature. Necessity demands that music be kept in the schools. A schoolmaster must be able to sing; otherwise I will not look at him. And before a young man is ordained into the ministry, he should practise music in school.” (1)

– Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546) held music in exceptionally high esteem.  His experience of music at home, as a boy in school, in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, and as a priest had a profound and lasting effect on him. He became a passionate music lover and, as a singer and lute player, a fine amateur musician. (2)

Luther’s writings on music are few, mostly ad hoc, and scattered widely throughout his works. Nowhere did he attempt anything akin to a systematic theology of music. What he does say about music comes in the context of very practical, pragmatic interests. (3)

Luther was resolute in working out his convictions about music in corporate worship. Church music as he first knew it was largely limited to vocal polyphony (in the Renaissance tradition), Gregorian chant, and hymnody in Latin and the vernacular. As is well known, Luther was determined that the Word of God was to be engrained in congregations and – against much medieval tradition – that the whole congregation should sing (though not to the exclusion of a choir) and, ideally, sing in their own language so that all could participate with understanding (though not to the exclusion of Latin in the choral liturgy). He saw congregational hymn-singing in the vernacular as an especially valuable tool for fixing God’s Word in people’s hearts. (4) One of the timeless hymns of the Christian faith, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” was written by Luther.

Luther believed the most sophisticated form of music of his day should be taught to the young and sung in churches along with plainer and more straightforward songs (including sacred folk songs). (5)

Carl Schalk goes to the heart of the matter: “The Lutheran Reformation, proceeding from Luther’s basic understanding of music as a creation and a gift of God, successfully encouraged the reciprocal interaction of art music of the most highly developed kind together with simple congregational song.” (6)

This both-and approach to music (not the same as “anything goes”), along with the variety of music it generated, is undoubtedly one of Luther’s greatest legacies. Luther and the tradition he initiated drew on a huge range of material – including Gregorian chant, polyphony, sacred folk songs, and simple unison line singing – and led to an immense wealth of choral and instrumental music, including Johann Sebastian Bach, to whom we will now turn our focus. (7)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) spent all his adult life as a professional, practicing musician. (8)

He served as organist at Arnstadt and Muhlhausen, court organist and concertmaster in the chapel of the Duke of Weimar, music director at the court of the prince of Cothen, and then finally, from 1723, as cantor at the St. Thomas School and director of music in Leipzig. (9)

What makes his music so intriguing are its theological resonances – the witness it provides to the Christian gospel and to the created world as perceived through the lens of that gospel. (10)

Bach was a Lutheran. His schooling was in Lutheran settings. He attended the same Eisenach school as Luther himself. Much of his music was written for the Lutheran liturgies of the day and takes account of the principles of worship commended by Luther. As a church musician, [Bach] gave formal and written assent to the doctrines enshrined in the Book of Concord (1850) – an anthology of documents embracing fundamental Lutheran teaching. An inventory of [Bach’s] library at his death reveals that he owned two sets of Luther’s complete works as well as numerous volumes by Lutheran theologians. (11)

[The five solas were] basic to the Lutheran outlook of Bach’s day and these themes recur across the full range of Bach’s works, [as evidenced in the initials “S.D.G” (Soli Deo Gloria) that are found in his church compositions and some of his secular pieces]. (12)

The cross is the culmination and focal point of the Mass in B Minor. The frequent calls to Christ-centered faith [is present] in all the mature vocal works. The contrast between law and gospel is basic to the structure of many of the cantatas. (13)

The characteristic Lutheran stress on proclamation of the gospel pervades Bach’s music; indeed, Michael Marissen sums up Bach’s Leipzig ministry in this way: “It was Bach’s job as Cantor of the St. Thomas School of Leipzig to be a musical preacher for the city’s main churches.” (14)

Bach’s music still exemplifies a theological engagement with music that has probably never been surpassed. It was the result not only of a technical prowess rarely equaled in Western music but also of an extraordinarily sensitive Christian intelligence, rooted in Scripture, indebted to the Lutheran tradition, and nourished by regular worship. He may not have left us with a theological tome. He was not a professional theologian, and his primary skills were not in words but in tones – melodies and cadences, fugues, trios, arias, and chaconnes. But the fact remains that he was well-informed Biblically and theologically, and his musical output shows he could penetrate the most demanding theological issues with a remarkable acuity. (15)

(1) Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 30.2 (Weimer: H. Bohlau, 1909, 557, no. 6248.
(2) Jeremy Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 98.
(3) Begbie, 98.
(4) Begbie, 104.
(5) Begbie, 105.
(6) Carl Schalk, Luther on Music, 35. Cf. Herl, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism, chap. 1.
(7) Begbie, 105.
(8) Begbie, 120-121.
(9) Malcolm Boyd, Bach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York: Norton, 2000); Peter F. Williams, The Life of Bach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
(10) Begbie, 121.
(11) Begbie, 122-123.
(12) Begbie, 123, 122.
(13) Begbie, 123.
(14) Michael Marissen, Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach’s St. John Passion: With an Annotated Literal Translation of the Libretto (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 7.
(15) Michael Marissen, Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach’s St. John Passion: With an Annotated Literal Translation of the Libretto (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 5.