Listen to the entire SDSO 2014 performance of Bach’s St. John Passion.
David’s Reading Recommendations
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
Christoph Wolff
“Published on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, a landmark biography by a noted Bach scholar, provides a dramatic new study of the life and music of this key composer and musician of the Baroque era, exploring the intimate links between Bach's life and music and his innovations in musical composition, performance, and education.”
Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven
John Elliot Gardiner
“Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who seems so ordinary, so opaque—and occasionally so intemperate?”
Mark’s Reading Recommendations
Bach Among the Theologians
Jaroslav Pelikan
“Bach Among the Theologians is Pelikan's appreciation of Bach as a highly creative man who was truly a man of his own time. He puts to rest the somewhat artificial argument about the sacred and secular strains in Bach's work. This "tension" ultimately does not seem to have been as big a deal for Bach as it has become for modern historians, musicians, theologians, etc. Perhaps, because Bach's sense of the sacred was much more encompassing than we highly compartmentalized moderns ever allow it to be. In any case, the fact that so many highly divergent groups want to claim Bach as their own is probably sufficient proof of Bach's transcendent greatness.”
My Only Comfort:
Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach
Calvin R. Stapert
“A unique guide to the theological roots of Bach's music. The beauty of Johann Sebastian Bach's music is due in large measure to its spiritual foundations, but with the passage of time, certain keys to comprehending the spiritual roots of Bach's music have been lost. My Only Comfort helps modern listeners reconnect with Bach's music, providing in one place the tools necessary to listen to Bach's music with greater understanding.”