Johann Sebastian Bach Quotes
14 quotes from Johann Sebastian Bach — German composer and musician of the Baroque period, widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in Western music h….
“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”
“I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”
“The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.”
“There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”
“If I decide to be an idiot, then I'll be an idiot on my own accord.”
“I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.”
“Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.”
“Since the best musicians were not available, mediocre ones would have to be accepted.”
“I have had to work hard; anyone who works just as hard will get just as far.”
“With devotional music, God is always present in his grace.”
“There I found myself in a situation of almost continual vexation, envy, and persecution.”
“I thought this art was dead; but I see it still lives in you.”
“He had normal flaws and failings, which make him very approachable. But he had this unfathomably brilliant mind and a capacity to hear music and then to deliver music that is beyond the capacity of pretty well any musician before or since.”
“The aesthetic magnificence of Bach's musical settings surely makes these great cantatas more, not less, problematic. The notion that beauty trumps all really is too good to be true.”
