Johann Sebastian Bach
20 quotes
Biography
"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."
"What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve."
"Dem höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren, Dem Nächsten draus sich zu belehren."
"Und soll wie aller Musik also auch des Generalbasses Finis und Endursache anders nicht als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemütes sein. Wo dieses nicht in acht genommen wird, ists keine eigentliche Musik, sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleier."
"Bei einer andächtigen Musik ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart."
"Not brook, but ocean should be his name (Bach is the German word for brook.)"
"Bach is the immortal God of Harmony."
"To Bach, notes were not just sounds but the very stuff of creation."
"To be able to hear J. S. Bach take a melody and improvise what amounts to a spontaneous composition is the most amazing thing I can think of."
"My hero was J. S. Bach. It was from his works that I came to understand mathematics and, through a greater understanding of math, came to a greater understanding of Bach—the golden ratio, the rise of complexity through the reiteration of simple elements, the presence of the cosmic in the common."
"One of the most extraordinary things about history's most extraordinary musician is the fact that this man's music, which exerts such a magnetic attraction for us today, against which we tend to measure much of the achievement in the art of music in the last two centuries, that this music had absolutely no effect on either the musicians or the public of his own day. And the strange thing about Bach is that he doesn't at all fit our conception of the misunderstood genius who was years ahead of his time. He was certainly misunderstood, but not because he was ahead of his time, rather because according the musical disposition of that day, he was generations behind it."
"Bach is, for me, the touchstone that keeps my playing honest. Keeping the intonation pure in double stops, bringing out the various voices where the phrasing requires it, crossing the strings so that there are not inadvertent accents, presenting the structure in such a way that it's clear to the listener without being pedantic - one can't fake things in Bach, and if one gets all of them to work, the music sings in the most wonderful way."
"Pongileoni's bowing and the scraping of the anonymous fiddlers had shaken the air in the great hall, had set the glass of the windows looking onto it vibrating: and thus in turn had shaken the air in Lord Edward's apartment on the further side. The shaking air rattled Lord Edward's membrane tympani; the interlocked malleus, incus, and stirrup bones were set in motion so as to agitate the membrane of the oval window and raise an infinitesimal storm in the fluid of the labyrinth. The hairy endings of the auditory nerve shuddered like weeds in a rough sea; a vast number of obscure miracles were performed in the brain, and Lord Edwards ecstatically whispered "Bach!""
"I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course."
"All roads lead to Bach."
"Partita for Violin No. 2 (Bach)"
"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."
"God's gift to his sorrowing creatures is a joy worthy of their destiny."