Bach

When asked what the human race should send into the universe aboard the Voyager spacecraft, biologist Lewis Thomas suggested, “The complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach,” adding “but that would be boasting.” Undisputed champion of the baroque style, and master of the contrapuntal technique (separate musical lines played simultaneously), the German composer (born in 1685) continues to amaze with the complexity and sophistication of his work, from the Brandenburg concertos and the Goldberg Variations (written as an instrumental lullaby) to his 200-plus cantatas, including Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben.

Bach sets Christ’s last days to music in Next Steps.

While Bach was Cantor and Musical Director of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig during the 1720s, he would write a new cantata every week — that’s an incredible level of output, much of it based on Sunday readings from the Bible. His famous work, “St. Matthew Passion,” dates from this time and was composed specifically for Good Friday, telling the story of Christ’s final days. Various extracts from the work have been used on soundtracks by a number of filmmakers, including Andrei Tarkovsky and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and here we’ve included the brilliant aria for soprano “Blute nur, du liebes Herz” sung by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, in front of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

For a suite performance by Murray Perahia, peruse our Bach Deep Cuts.

Recorded performances of Bach’s works in the 20th century would be incomplete without the contributions of concert pianist Murray Perahia, here featured on “English Suite No.1,” one of six harpsichord suites most likely composed around 1715, and thought to represent the great man’s earliest set. Perahia began listening to Bach while recovering from a series of operations to correct a bone spur on his thumb. Other big names here include Yo-Yo Ma, performing cello suite “No. 2 in D Minor” with its breathtaking shifts of chord and string crossings, and Glenn Gould, tripping merrily through the Gigue from “French Suite No.5 in G.”

A couple of things you should know about the great J.S. Bach: first, he was part of an immense dynasty of Bachs (father, brother, sons, uncles) who produced great music for the best part of 200 years. Secondly, while he did not introduce the world to any new musical forms, he refined and developed existing methods into something brilliant and transcendent. By the time of his death in 1750, at age 65, he had composed more than 1,100 works. Here we offer you a comprehensive introduction to his mind-blowing legacy, which should help you plot a course from chorale to concerto, from cantata to Christmas oratorio, in the company of incredible musicians like Angela Hewitt, Glenn Gould and Itzhak Perlman.