Soli Deo Gloria—“glory to God alone”—was the testimony of Johann Sebastian Bach. Three centuries have not diminished the influence or the legacy of Bach. As recently as 2019, a poll was taken among almost 200 living musical composers, asking who they considered to be the greatest composer of all time. The winner was Bach, setting him above all other greats, such as Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Bach’s masterpieces have stood the test of time, and his concertos, fugues, counterpoints, and magnificent cantatas are still studied and performed the world over.

Yet, Bach himself never basked in any personal glory. He began each manuscript with the initials J. J., the abbreviation for Jesu, Juva in Latin, which translated means “Jesus, help”; plus, he ended all pieces with his signature J.S.B. and SDG, for the Latin Soli Deo Gloria (translation: “glory to God alone”).These notations were not merely a statement on paper for the sake of formality. Living for the glory of God alone was a way of life for Johann Sebastian Bach.

While his musical masterpieces are known and loved around the world, few people know the humble details of Bach’s personal life. He was born on March 21, 1685, in the German town of Eisenach, a town near the castle where Martin Luther had labored in translating most of the German New Testament. Bach’s father, Johann Ambrosius, was the town musician and well-known for his skill on the trumpet and the violin. The man instilled into his eighth child, Johann Sebastian, an early love for music and a desire to glorify God through every note.

Bach was born into a large musical family. All of his uncles were respected professional musicians and his elder brothers also carried on the family tradition. Who would have guessed that the youngest boy in one branch of this musical family would one day outshine them all?

By the time he was ten, Bach was an orphan, having lost both his parents. He then lived with his oldest brother who had a post as organist in another town in the Thuringian Forest, situated 25 miles south of Eisenach. It was this older brother who imparted to Bach the keyboard skills that would one day make him famous. In a family of musicians, each young man struggled to find his own niche. Keyboard stringed instruments, such as the harpsichord and the clavichord, became the specialties of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Such was the aptitude of the young orphan that he soon had learned all that his brother could teach him. He sat up at night by candlelight, copying manuscripts so that he could have more advanced music to play. By the time he was fifteen, he was known for his skills not only on the clavichord and harpsichord, but also on the violin and the organ. He was beginning to practice composition also and had a singing voice that was noted as “uncommonly fine.”

The Bach family, in spite of their musical genius, struggled to thrive financially. This common problem existed among professional musicians in those days. Johann Sebastian Bach never finished a formal university education. He gained much of his education through what he learned by imitation, careful attention to detail, and constant and diligent labor and practice.

In August 1703, when he was only eighteen, Bach was installed as the organist in the village of Arnstadt, just south and west of the larger town of Weimar. There Bach blossomed as an organist and as the leader of the church choir.

The developing musician was taught a needed lesson in humility during these early years. His youthful arrogance offended some members of the choir and the town leadership. The situation became particularly hostile when Bach, frustrated by the incompetence of his bassoon player, angrily called him a zippel fagottist! This name-calling translates in English as “nanny goat bassoonist.” A few nights later, the insulted bassoon player ambushed Bach on a dark street and attacked him with a stick. Bach drew his dagger, and a fight ensued that could have resulted in murder! Instead, it ended with a humbled organist. The town council admonished the talented young musician that all must live as imperfect men with other imperfect men. It was advice that Bach never forgot and lived to be deeply grateful for.

Bach learned to put away his youthful arrogance and to walk humbly with God. The young musician took to heart the words of the Apostle Peter who urged the importance of humility, as recorded in I Peter 5:5–6: “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”

In due time, the Lord indeed exalted Bach as he learned to give glory to God alone rather than to receive glory for himself. Another humbling influence upon the life of Bach was his marriage in October 1707. Marriage is often used by God to refine a young man and show him, through the mirror of a Godly wife, his own flaws of character. Bach had the opportunity to marry the daughter of an accomplished organist and thereby advance his own reputation. Instead, he chose to wed a poor, but Godly orphan girl named Maria Barbara. Interestingly, Maria Barbara was a Bach! She was a distant cousin, and shared with Johann Sebastian the same great-grandfather. Maria Barbara was a devoted wife to Johann Sebastian and a loving mother to their seven children who were to be raised for the glory of God.

Bach turned down a lucrative position at court so that he could pursue what was becoming his driving passion—church music. He wanted great music not only in the palaces of kings and princes, but also in the halls of worship and for the glory of God alone. This zeal for God’s glory inspired some of Bach’s greatest and most enduring works, such as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” and St. Matthew Passion.

Life was not without its troubles. Bach deliberately chose the life of a father surrounded by his children rather than life in the court of princes. He often struggled to support his large family. Yet, some of his greatest pieces were written with toddlers and infants in his lap! Of the seven children granted him in his first marriage, three died in infancy.

After the death of his first wife in 1720, Bach married Anna Magdalena, a young lady sixteen years his junior. While she had a fine singing voice, she became an even finer mother. Thirteen more children were born to this marriage, but only six survived, making a total of ten children who lived to adulthood. These children became an “ornament,” as described in Proverbs 1:9, to their parents, and the family music sessions were quite remarkable and all to God’s glory!

Surrounded by his family, Johann Sebastian Bach breathed his last on July 28, 1750. At the time of his death, he was blind, sick, weak, and not exceptionally famous. His last piece, a chorale titled “Before Thy Throne I Now Appear,” was dictated from his deathbed. No eulogy was pronounced at his funeral, and no marker was placed at his grave. Bach was so poor that he could not leave his family an inheritance. His wife lived the last ten years of her life subsisting on charity at an almshouse.

At that time, Bach’s music was thought to be old-fashioned and out-of-date. Felix Mendelssohn revived the works of “old Sebastian” in the 1840s, a century after Bach’s death; only then was the true greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach appreciated. Today, Bach is recognized as the greatest composer of all time. Yet, even with that recognition, his work through his signature deflects that glory to the only One worthy of all praise. Johann Sebastian Bach’s testimony still stands: Soli Deo Gloria.

Sources and Further Reference:
Wilbur, Gregory. Glory and Honor: The Musical and Artistic Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2005.
Gaines, James R. Evening in the Palace of Reason. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.