It is important to grasp that Bach was not only a man of strong religious beliefs and great moral probity but a dedicated musician who felt that music was one way (and, to him, the best way) of speaking to and serving God. He was a rigorous Lutheran in creed, sometimes uneasy when serving Calvinist masters or Lutherans with strong Pietist leanings, but not (so far as we can see) bigoted. Indeed, by the standards of eighteenth-century Germany – where the Wars of Religion had ended as recently as his own childhood (and the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the devastating Thirty Years’ War, had been signed just thirty-seven years before he was born) – he was ecumenical, certainly irenic.
The vast majority of his religious compositions were written to be performed in a Lutheran church. But there is nothing in them offensive to non-Lutherans. Unlike his contemporary, Handel, Bach does not exude Protestant religiosity. He could, and did, compose settings for the Latin liturgy and hymns. That, indeed, is how his Mass in B Minor began, with a setting for the Kyrie and Gloria, gradually expanding, over the years, into a complete Latin mass of astounding power and complexity, which could be, was, and still is – today, more than ever – performed with equal enthusiasm and devotion by Catholics and Protestants. His great St. Matthew Passion, which, together with the Mass, marks the summit of his artistic achievement, is set in German, the vernacular regarded as suspect for services by south German Catholics. But, again, it is regarded with reverence by many Christians today as the most faithful and exalted musical presentation of Christ’s suffering and death.
Bach was a Lutheran by birth, education, taste and, not least, loyalty…[Bach's music], whether performed by himself or others, had to be of the highest quality, always and everywhere. Anything less would be an insult to the deity or, at best, a gross dereliction of duty. Moreover, quality was not enough. Bach was aware of the great originality of his mind, both in devising new musical forms and in perfecting old ones. He knew he could serve God best by demonstrating his originality. Hence, he had a religious compulsion to create, and his creations had to stretch his own powers to the uttermost and are, therefore, hard for anyone else to play.
From: Creators: From Chaucer to Walt Disney by Paul Johnson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2006), pp. 83-84.
