- Hello, I'm Sara Zaslaw from Georgia Public Broadcasting, and I'm delighted to be joining the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and The Halle Foundation in presenting this program about perhaps the most revered composer of them all, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Over the next two hours, you will see and hear Bach's timeless music brought to life by the musicians of the ASO and special guests soloists.

You'll hear about Bach from the ASO's music director, Robert Spano, a Bach expert who will share his great passion and insights about the composer.

In this film, the orchestra and filmmaker Hilan Warshaw, also go a bit further and try to bring Bach to life as a person.

Did you know that Bach wrote a cantata about coffee?

One about a pandemic?

Or that he spent time in prison.

You'll find out about all of that and much more in this program.

Join me now for a special journey, "In the Key of Bach."

- On behalf of the Halle Foundation, we are honored to be a part of this extraordinary project in partnership with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and music director, Robert Spano.

The Halle Foundation was created by Klaus Halle in 1986 to support and strengthen the relationship between the United States and Germany.

Born in Germany in 1927, Mr. Halle began a remarkable career with the Coca-Cola Company as a delivery truck driver in Essen, Germany.

Over the next 45 years, he rose to the most senior ranks of the company finishing his career as senior executive vice president of the Coca-Cola Company and president of Coca-Cola International.

He lived most of his adult life in Atlanta, Georgia.

I moved from Germany to Atlanta in 1978 to establish and direct the Southeastern Chapter of the German American Chamber of Commerce.

It was there that I met Klaus Halle and was privileged to become his friend and ultimately the successor trustee and chair of his foundation.

The Halle Foundation supports initiatives like this documentary, which bring two cultures together in a shared love of music to promote understanding, knowledge and friendship between the people of Germany and Georgia.

As a citizen of both the United States and Germany, Mr. Halle devoted enormous energy and resources to promoting international awareness and cooperation.

His work in the field of international philanthropy sought to encourage Americans to become global as well as national citizens.

He actively brought people together from around the world, from students to statesman right here in his home to share his philosophy.

His philanthropic reach was both national and global.

The Halle Foundation is pleased to support this documentary which brings both seasoned music lovers and new audiences closer to Bach and his music and shares his message of transcendence and healing to our world today.

Thank you for joining us.

- [Announcer] Four, three, two, one.

We have ignition and we have lift off.

(rocket rumbling) (gentle music) We have lift off of the Titan Centaur carrying the first of two Voyager spacecraft to extend man's senses farther into the solar system than ever before.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] This is literally music from another world.

When NASA sent musical recordings beyond the solar system with the Voyager space mission, they included the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

(gentle music) (static crackling) - [Man] There's a whole fleet of them.

Look on other side.

Wonder if there's- - [Man] Look at that thing!

- If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe the first thing those creatures will learn about human beings, our lives our souls, our joys, our pain, they will be sounds like these.

(gentle music) - It's perfect music.

There is no other way to talk about it.

- I feel like Bach's music is a glimpse of the divine.

- I mean, I can't think of anybody after him, at least in Western music who hasn't been influenced directly and obviously.

- There's just pieces that make your heart sing.

It's kind of a timeless message.

- He's not at all in the right place.

(laughs) (gentle music) - But who was he?

Unlike say Mozart or Beethoven, he left us almost no letters, no verbal record of his thoughts and feelings.

- That's been a lot of speculation.

- If Bach had a cocktail, what would he order?

- Is he like Elon Musk or is he like Steve Jobs?

- He seems to be like, he's got that other side when he got home and took off the powdered wig.

- Only one visual portrait of him has survived.

And what does that tell us?

- [Man] When you look at this man's face what does it say to you?

- Hello?

Bach calling.

(laughs) - He looked like a serious person and he's about business and don't play with him.

- I think he looks like he's judging everyone.

(laughs) 'Cause he's making this like.

- An English barrister.

He looks like he's coming after you.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- Jesus.

Honesty?

- Don't play with him.

But he looks like he could be fun though.

- I don't know.

I feel like there's something else about him.

- Otherwise, I'm not really sure.

- We only know Bach in pieces.

And so this film tells his story in pieces.

One of his greatest works, "The Well-Tempered Clavier" is a set of 24 preludes and fugues in each musical key.

We've taken inspiration from that and in this program we're going to get to know Bach in 24 short films.

Each one of them is a different key into his life, mind and genius.

A genius that lives for all time, especially in our own time.

So with your permission, of course.

(gentle thoughtful music) (gentle pensive music) (choir singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] Harmony.

(rain drumming) (match whooshing) - He seemed really devoted to his job, which was music, but it was everything.

Music was 24/7 for him, but that's all he knew.

(bell tolling) - If anyone was ever destined to be a musician from birth it was Johann Sebastian Bach.

(pensive music) By the time he was born in 1685 the Bachs had been professional musicians for over three centuries including his father Johann Ambrosius Bach.

(dark thoughtful music) Music, harmony was the family craft, handed down from father to son, to grandson in the small towns and churches of central Germany.

(pensive music) (gentle thoughtful music) It was the world in which his family lived and in which they died.

All too often, they died too young.

By the time Bach was 10, both his parents had left this world.

The young orphan was taken in by his older brother, a church organist, and soon Bach himself was an excellent organist.

His talent did not stay a secret.

At 18, he was offered a job as court musician to the duke of Weimar.

(gentle music) Bach knew life was short.

He believed in hard work and making the most of the time we have.

(gentle thoughtful music) But more than anything else, he believed in God.

(choir singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] For the glory of God alone.

- I'm not a particular religious person, but when I play Bach, or listen to Bach, I always ask myself how can a man write all this unbelievably, amazing music dedicated to God if there isn't a God?

- [Narrator] For the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.

(choir singing in foreign language) - First and last, Bach was a man of faith.

- [Narrator] Where there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present.

- He often inscribed at the end of his compositions the words Soli Deo Gloria, which means to God alone the glory.

(choir singing in foreign language) Unlike other major composers of his day, like Handel or Vivaldi, he worked mostly in the church.

(choir singing in foreign language) - He wanted to glorify God with his music.

That was a big part of him.

(choir singing in foreign language) And I think that was really something that he treasured that he connected his personal beliefs with his professional life.

(choir singing in foreign language) We're very compartmentalized in the 21st century.

And we like to see, you know, one thing at a time but we don't tend to really connect them necessarily.

And I think Bach is the one who would say, "No."

- [Narrator] For the glory of God alone.

In honor of our Lord alone.

- He may have served God but he was not always an obedient servant of his employers.

Before long that led to some trouble.

(triumphant music) - [Narrator] The brawl.

- He's a tough guy, for sure.

Don't be a criminal in his eyes 'cause he'll make sure that you're found out and he's gonna rake you over the coals.

- I wouldn't be afraid of him.

I'll challenge you.

(laughs) (bright music) - The beautiful music from the new church here was marked by some decidedly unharmonious notes yesterday as a violent fight broke out between one of the church musicians and its musical leader, Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach Bach has now charged that musician with assault.

Is it true that you assaulted Mr. Bach?

- That's totally false.

- Hey, Professor.

You know, - What?

- You thought you could just assault me like that.

I asked him why he was calling me those nasty names he did.

He's incredibly mean to his musicians and his students.

(bright music) - I see.

(dramatic music) (knife clicks) - He drew his knife because he couldn't deny what I was saying.

- All right.

(men groaning) Ow!

Get off!

- And how did it end?

(men groaning) - Hey!

Knock it off!

I'll fire both of you!

- [Narrator] Men must live among imperfections.

Bach must get along with the students and they must not make one another's lives miserable.

- I'm sure he was probably in high regard at the time.

'Cause he looks like he's dressed very well.

I feel like they don't paint portraits of people that aren't.

- I don't know.

I feel like it says a lot about a person when they can wear curly wigs, like that.

(laughs) So clearly loads of self-esteem, looks like he doesn't really care what anybody else has to say about him.

He's pretty headstrong, gonna do what he wants to do regardless.

You know what I mean?

(dramatic mysterious music) - [Narrator] The organ.

(dark mysterious music) (dark dramatic music) - During his lifetime, he was far less known as a composer than he was as a brilliant virtuoso organist and an improviser.

(bright mysterious music) - The organ was the public instrument at that time.

And I think the power that you feel as an organist when you, as one person can fill an entire church, that is something that is appealing to organists today and I have no doubt that appealed to Bach.

(bright mysterious music) - The organ was a perfect vehicle for him because one player gets to play with both hands and two feet.

(dramatic music) He was constantly fascinated by what the organ could do.

The palette of color of the organ and the complexity of the music that he could write for the organ.

(dramatic mysterious music) (dark mysterious music) And he also had to make some money.

- He was ambitious, he was a go getter.

(dramatic music) And I think there is a distinction, the music he wrote for his job at the church, music he wrote for himself and then music he wrote to impress people.

(dramatic mysterious music) (dramatic mysterious music) (dark triumphant music) (dark dramatic music) (quiet dramatic music) He wrote the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" the most famous organ piece when he was 18 years old.

And you could just hear him having a terrific time.

(bright playful music) (bright music) (light playful music) - I wouldn't be here today without Bach's "D Minor Toccata."

I was a 15-year-old kid and I played the organ for a little bit and I actually never really practiced.

And then my auntie, she took me to a concert where someone played that piece and I said I want to play that piece.

(dramatic music) (dark dramatic music) - [Narrator] Fugue.

- In many ways, Bach spent his whole life in search of the perfect fugue, I would say.

(laughs) - Of all the musical forms Bach mastered, he probably left the greatest mark on this one, the fugue.

(dark dramatic music) It's a piece that involves two or more voices built around a short musical theme, which is called the subject.

The subject is repeated in different voices and then further developed in the course of the fugue.

More and more voices come in, they comment on each other- - Subject is introduced.

- Imitate and talk over each other, - In two, three four voices.

- Introducing variations on the subject.

- At different intervals.

- Sometimes turning it upside down sometimes.

- In canonic imitations.

It imitates itself in various ways.

- Playing backwards or twice as slow or twice as fast.

- And then all - Even engaging in a musical argument - Of the material follows based on- (men chattering) - In many ways, I will be arrested after this interview.

To me they are the least interesting music of Bach.

I don't ever need to hear "Art of Fugue" again.

It's just not my cup of tea.

So I admire it to do a five voice fugue and to manage to deal with this inversions and these dialogues I admire them greatly, but to me personally it doesn't touch me.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] In a fugue, each voice is exactly of equal importance and usually always a fugue begins with one voice entering, playing the theme of the fugue and then after having played that theme, a second voice will enter, playing exactly what the first voice had played just different pitch.

- To create unity out of diversity harmonizing multiple independent voices into one unified musical flow.

- And very few people manage to write the music that is that complex- - The fact that he could takes something that seems still on the surface perhaps an academic exercise almost and turn it into the most exciting piece of music.

- He elaborates on it.

- The most profound piece of music in some ways.

- But always giving some sort of narrative or emotional message and not quite to say, oh, look what I can do.

(dramatic music) - I hope that explains the subject.

- You can shoot me now.

- [Man] You can shoot me now.

- [Narrator] Where is Bach?

(pensive music) - I feel like he did not want to sit for this portrait.

He was like, oh, can this guy finish painting me already?

- But if I were to look at him I would say he could be very opinionated and very firm on his opinions.

You know what I mean?

He's one of those people who kind of just like, this is me, this is what I do.

I don't care if you like it, but this is what you get.

So I guess that could be a good or bad thing depending on who you were to him.

- So are we all here?

- I think so.

- Wait, where's Bach.

- He was very much my music, I know what is best, which clearly he did but he didn't understand that in order to achieve his goal you should give in other areas.

(pensive music) - What?

- Does anyone know where Bach is?

(gentle pensive music) - He just not turn his video on?

- Nah, he's not here.

- [Narrator] The organist in the new church, Bach is interrogated as to where he has lately been for so long.

And from whom he obtained leave to go.

- Also who, who is Bach?

- Really?

- Ah, he's the organist.

- Okay, that's a little embarrassing.

- Sorry, I lost everything.

It's my dogs over here.

(mournful music) - And there was a famous story about how he walked 200 miles from his first church jobs to hear brilliant virtuoso Buxtehude who had a famous series of concerts.

And when he got there, he discovered he was a month early.

- [Man] So I guess Bach is with Buxtehude now.

- Are we okay with that?

(mournful music) - Why, what are you saying?

- I think it's worth mentioning that the music for the last four months has been a lot easier to listen to.

- [Man] No, that's a good point.

None of these dissonances, these- - Like.

- That strange stuff that, you know Bach plays when he's here.

- I got you.

I got you.

- Remember that time that Bach skipped services to get drunk in the basement.

- I love that.

(all laughing) - Sorry, guys.

- Well, I didn't think it was that funny, but I mean, yeah, I do remember that.

- [Man] That was awful.

- Well, it sounds like the answer is Bach is not here.

(dramatic music) - Have a great weekend, everyone - Thanks.

- Yeah.

Bye.

- Bye.

(pensive music) - [Narrator] Conclusion, he should behave in the future quite differently and better than he had hitherto or the favor meant for him would be withdrawn.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] The unknown maiden.

(woman singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] Thereupon asking further, by what right he recently caused the unknown maiden to be invited into the choir loft and let her make music there.

(woman singing in foreign language) - Who was she?

We may never know, but the timing suggests she may have been Maria Barbara, his second cousin, who he married the next year.

(woman singing in foreign language) (bells tolling) (woman singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] Children.

(bright playful music) - Catharina Dorothea.

(bright playful music) - Wilhelm.

- Johann Christoph.

(bright playful music) - [Maria] Maria Sophia.

- [Johann] Johann.

- [Leopold] Leopold Augustus.

(bright playful music) - He had 20 children only 10 reached adulthood.

(bright playful music) (eraser scraping) (quiet playful music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] "The Little Organ Book."

(rain drumming) In which a beginning organist receives given instruction as to performing a chorale in a multitude of ways while achieving mastery in the study of the pedal.

- You know Bach with having had so many children he wrote instructional keyboard playing books for his children.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music) - So a lot of us keyboard players start our training with that.

Some have just been petrified of, you know, playing this complex music.

- The greatest minds, the greatest creative geniuses in the world are first demanding of themselves more so than of anyone else.

But if you are that demanding of yourself, you can't help but be that demanding of everybody else.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Prison.

- One way Bach's time was not like our own was that as a musician, he was an indentured servant of the local prince.

He found that out the hard way when he tried to quit his job without the prince of Weimar's permission.

(pensive music) - [Narrator] On November 6th, the concert master and organist Bach was confined to the county judge's place of detention for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal.

(somber music) And finally on December 2nd was freed from his arrest with notice of his unfavorable discharge.

(somber music) (wind whooshing) (bright playful music) - Pain and sorrow that he definitely experienced in his life.

You can find that in his music, but you also find exuberant joy.

(bright playful music) ♪ Alleluja, alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja - Does anyone know where Bach is?

♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja ♪ Alleluja - He gets his way.

Sometimes it takes, it takes awhile, but he's smart.

And he's cunning too.

The eyebrows will tell you that if you see how high they're arched.

- He's a kind of business person.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] The prince.

- The reason he wanted to leave Weimar was a good one.

He got a better offer.

The court of Cothen had a young prince named Leopold and Leopold loved music.

He thought Bach was the most exciting musician around and offered him the post of chief musician at his court.

(gentle hopeful music) (light hopeful music) On December 3rd, Bach was out of jail and free to accept and accept he did.

(light hopeful music) (water whooshing) (gentle hopeful music) Johann and Leopold got along famously.

Even better, Leopold pushed his musical boundaries.

(gentle hopeful music) The prince was a Calvinist.

And Calvinists liked their church music to be simple, meaning that someone of Bach's caliber wasn't needed for the services.

What Leopold did want was a steady supply of music itself.

Concertos and sweet sonatas and cantatas to suit every mood and accompany every feast.

(bright music) Thank goodness he did because the music Bach gave us in those years is a feast in itself.

(light hopeful music) (light hopeful music) (joyful hopeful music) (water whooshing) (light hopeful music) (gentle joyful music) (bright hopeful music) (joyful music) (hopeful music) (bright joyful music) (light hopeful music) (dramatic joyful music) (bright joyful music) (dramatic hopeful music) (dramatic music) (bright joyful music) Bach felt freer than ever.

And his music had also been set free.

For the first time he was being paid to write compositions that didn't have to be about anything, religious or otherwise.

After Bach's death, in the 19th century, this kind of music was named- - [Narrator] Absolute music.

- In other words, works that have no text or story but actually such pieces are a gift to the imagination because they can be about whatever we want them to be.

(gentle peaceful music) (gentle thoughtful music) (sweet wistful music) (gentle thoughtful music) (sweet gentle music) (gentle wistful music) (gentle yearning music) (dramatic pensive music) (gentle mournful music) (gentle wistful music) (gentle yearning music) (gentle thoughtful music) (gentle yearning music) What do you think it's about?

(gentle yearning music) - [Narrator] The departed.

(bell tolling) - Bach was now more successful and happier in his job than he had ever been.

But death was always waiting.

(wistful mournful music) While he was on the road with Prince Leopold, death suddenly took his beloved wife, Maria Barbara.

(mournful music) - And he was not there when she died.

It just, I think it was devastating to him for a long time.

("Chaconne") - [Narrator] It was not long afterwards that he wrote this Chaconne for solo violin.

- It feels like he's really opening up personally to us.

As a player, you feel like the composer's directly speaking to you and you're kind of engaging with the music in a very private way.

- I think of the Chaconne as the Mount Everest of violin repertoire.

You can listen to the piece for the very first time and know nothing about it and it can mean everything to you.

I think of the Chaconne as a piece that encompasses everything in life.

It starts and ends the same way.

It's like a circle of life.

And within that circle of life, in this piece, there is major, there's minor, there's happiness, there's sadness, there's tension, there's sorrow, there's so many different feelings that were written into the music.

- Somehow he went on, he showed up for work day after day playing, teaching, and then he would head home to compose yet another concerto or cantata for the music hungry prince.

Maybe he didn't always feel like it, but with a house full of children to feed, he didn't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration.

Maybe working also helped him to endure the loss that he had faced.

Maybe that's him now.

("Prelude from Cello Suite No.

1") - [Man] Work.

- There is that sense of order that he has that is comforting on many levels.

I think that in so many ways, is why we're so attracted to Bach's music.

It's just a simple but incredibly powerful, glorious celebration of life.

("Ave Maria") - [Man] And maybe that's her.

(woman singing in foreign language) - [Man] The copyist.

- Bach met her at work and soon he was smitten.

She was Anna Magdalena, a 20 year old professional musician who sang at Prince Leopold's court.

Anna Magdalena, soprano, lover, collaborator, before long, they married.

- "My present wife sings a good, clear soprano."

She became even more his publisher.

She started copying out Bach's music and sold it to add to the family income.

And it's because of her that we know many of those works today.

- There are actually remarkably few manuscripts in Johann Sebastian's hand.

It was a real family business.

Thank you, Anna Magdalena.

- [Man] Coffee.

- If you've ever enjoyed live music at your favorite coffee shop, maybe you should thank Bach.

(upbeat music) In Leipzig, Bach started directing a group of musicians who performed at the hottest coffee shop in town.

Coffee was a recent arrival in Germany and it was all the rage.

The cafe, Zimmerman's had the brilliant idea of hosting musical performances for free.

They made their money selling coffee to people eager to hear Bach's music.

(woman singing in foreign language) - Yeah, nice to meet you.

Yeah, yeah, it's on me, I got it.

Wow.

That's hot coffee.

Large.

Are you okay?

- Oh, hey.

- He must really love coffee.

(women laughing) - [Man] The pandemic.

(dramatic music) - Now, Bach got his grandest job yet, cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.

From there, he saw to the musical life of the entire city, providing music for four of its churches, but also that year, Europe was gripped by the plague.

The plague that had devastated the continent for centuries and had just taken more than 100,000 lives in the French city of Marseilles.

(choir singing in foreign language) (man singing in foreign language) Bach used his music to inspire people who were dealing with this pandemic and to give them hope.

(Nmon singing in foreign language) - This aria, in essence, shows the difference between what happens when you're faced with a horrible situation and you don't have hope and you're faced with a horrible situation, and you do have hope.

And in this aria, there is hope.

(Nmon singing in foreign language) It's a juxtaposition of almost making the bad seem as horrible as it can possibly be to play up just how fantastic it is that there is a solution.

There is something that can pull you up out of it and make you whole again.

- [Man] More children.

("Sarabande") - Christina Sophia.

- Gottfried.

- Christian Gottlieb.

- [Girl] Elisabeth.

- [Boy] Ernestus Andreas.

- Regina Johanna.

- [Girl] Christiana Benedicta.

- [Girl] Christiana Dorothea.

- [Boy] Wilhelm.

- [Boy] Johan Christian.

- Johanna Carolina.

- You have 20 children and only 10 of them survive.

I think what that tells me is that it was actually a very difficult life, but also one that ultimately is also, I think, filled with joy.

(upbeat music) He must've had a very positive mindset.

Not some hermit who lives on some mountain and only writes music.

("Gavotte") I got to feel through some of the dances in the Partitas, it has a very joyful, uplifting quality.

Imagine what his household was like.

You know, there was all these kids running around.

It's hard to imagine, now, what it would be like to lose 10 children, but it's also hard to imagine what it would be like to have 10 children.

And I eventually became aware that actually he's kind of writing dance music whenever he's writing music.

And even his religious music is full of dances and dancing gestures and this is actually an essential part of who he was.

- I started my musical life as a pianist at age three and I was headed toward Andre Watsonville, I thought.

And my first piano teacher, Ruth Magruder, she gave me Bach chorales to sight read because they were complicated enough that I would have to pay attention to inner voices and all that sort of thing.

Fast forward to later on in life when different kinds of music started to catch my attention.

I'm a big old school R&B fan, I'm a huge house head.

I love house music and having worked on Bach and fugues and the way that, again, the harmonies and inner voices and the way they move, the way they work around each other and mesh and meld, so much of that was happening in the harmonies in house music, that originally what I'd learned from working on Bach became a thing when I started to construct my own harmonies in writing house music and producing that type of genre.

So I don't know if I've ever heard anybody else connect Bach with, you know, Frankie Knuckles, but for me, it really worked pretty closely that way.

There's a rhythmic pulse to Bach which, especially in his vocal writing, doesn't always even leave you time to breathe because you're moving along with the melody and with the flow with, it's never static.

In much the same way that in a progressive house track, things start in one place and then they progress, literally, to something else, so it might start off with just a beat and then it'll move on to maybe some light harmonies and a piano or in strings and then it starts to build multiple instruments, multiple melodies, multiple voices on top of each other.

(upbeat music) In the same way that a fugue will start with just one voice and go into several voices.

♪ All I can do I have done So, I think, both in a rhythmic and in a sort of dynamic harmonic sense, I'll just make that up, in all of those ways, the different variables that are existent in Bach that collect, that accrue to create a certain type of musical expression, those same types of things I found happening in house music.

♪ Will I see my home Bach definitely has a pulse to it.

The pulse doesn't go anywhere, it's extant through the entire piece, whatever the piece is.

♪ It's like that arrow in my heart I can't escape ♪ The tempo might change, the BPMs, for the dance music folk, might change but the pulse never stops.

So you're able to experience different kinds of emotional atmospheres without losing the foundation of the motion of the music.

(violin music) - [Man] The pipe.

(soft music) - [Man] "Whenever I take my pipe and stuff it, and smoke "to pass the time away, my thoughts as I sit there "and puff it, dwell on a picture sad and gray.

"It teaches me that very like am I myself unto my pipe."

- [Woman] "Like me, this pipe, so fragrant burning, "is made of naught but earth and clay.

"To earth, I, too, shall be returning.

"I cannot halt my slow decay.

"My well used pipe, now cracked and broken, "of mortal life is but a token."

- [Man] "No stain, the pipe's hue yet does darken.

"It remains white.

"Thus, do I know that when to death's call I must hearken, "my body, too, all pale will grow.

"To black beneath the sod it will turn.

"Likewise the pipe if often it burned."

- "For when the pipe is fairly glowing, "behold then, instantaneously the smoke off "into thin air going.

"'Til not but ash is left to see.

"Man's fame, likewise, away will burn.

"And unto dust his body turn.

"How oft it happens when one smoking, "the tempers missing from its shelf "and one goes with one's finger, poking "into the bowl and burns oneself, "if in the pipe, such pain does dwell, "how hot must be the pains of hell?

"Thus, over by pipe in contemplation "of such things I can constantly indulge "in fruitful meditation.

(rain falling) "And so, puffing contentedly, "on land, "at sea, "at home, "abroad.

"I smoke my pipe.

"And worship God."

- [Man] More work.

- Weekly cantatas for the church, passions, masses, secular music for the coffee house, the well tempered clevir and much, much more.

Bach refused to stop.

(upbeat music) It kept him busy.

It kept his family from hunger.

Perhaps it kept him from grieving.

- [Man] "Music has been mandated by God's spirit.

"Where there is devotional music, "God, with his grace is always present.

(Nmon singing in foreign language) "To the Leipzig town council.

"It cannot remain unmentioned that the fact "that so many poorly equipped boys and boys not "at all talented from music have been accepted "into the school to date, has necessarily caused "the music to decline and deteriorate.

"Considerable help is therefore all the more "needed to choose and appoint such musicians "as will satisfy the present musical state, mass-" - But this, too, fueled the problem.

With all this tireless composing and playing, Bach's eyes were growing weaker.

He soon realized that he had become nearsighted.

Fortunately, or so Bach thought, the problem had a solution.

(piano music) - [Man] The Oculist.

(piano music) - John Taylor, the Oculist was all the rage.

He traveled around Europe in a caravan, performing eye surgery in public as entertainment.

(symphony orchestra music) He called himself a Chevalier and wrote a bestselling autobiography.

How could anyone doubt he knew what he was doing?

Some people did doubt it.

The English writer, Samuel Johnson called him an instance of how far impudence can carry ignorance.

Nonsense, the man was a professional.

Bach wanted results and he wanted them fast.

(symphony orchestra music) Unfortunately, Taylor was a fraud and later confessed that he was making it up as he went along.

(symphony orchestra music) And that he had blinded hundreds of patients.

His victims included the two greatest composers of his time, Bach and Handel.

He treated them both, and he left them both blind.

Taylor left town, but Bach had lost his sight.

And the wound in his eyes became infected, the medicine of his day offering no hope or help.

But even that didn't stop him.

Right up to the end he was composing by giving dictation to his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel.

Nevertheless four months later, Mass.

(symphony orchestra music) - It has pleased the inscrutable council and will of our otherwise so loving father in heaven to take from his earthly life a few days ago, my dear husband the Director of Music and Cantor of the St. Thomas School here in blessed death.

(singing in foreign language) - Harmony.

In his lifetime few thought of him as a great composer or even knew much about his music.

In fact, the really famous ones in the family were his sons.

- Mozart said, "Bach is the father and we are but the children."

But the interesting fact is that he was not speaking of (indistinct) Bans Bach.

He was speaking of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach who was one of Bach's 20 children.

- Bach would not become widely known until 100 years after his death when another composer, Felix Mendelssohn conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in (indistinct) The rediscovery of Bach set the musical world on fire.

(symphony orchestra music) What do we learn from the story of Bach this extraordinary, ordinary man?

(symphony orchestra music) (singing in foreign language) - It connects to the soul of a human.

That's why Bach resonates.

You don't have to be religious in any particular way or spiritual even.

- As I play Bach, I just feel better somehow.

Even the saddle movements that it feels like it gives you somehow solace or hope.

(singing in foreign language) - Everyone needs that at any time in their life.

We've missed sharing moments with humans.

And I think being on stage with people and making these pieces speak again, I think we all come back much more grateful.

(singing in foreign language) - In my opinion, Bach is a perfect antidote for a pandemic (laughs) - Going through this past year and a half and all the terrible things that were happening all over the world.

For me getting to play this piece it kind of was this full circle moment.

(symphony orchestra music) - He has a really unusual combination of incredible complexity and direction towards resolution towards a safe space in a way.

(singing in foreign language) (crowd cheering) It's not easily achieved.

It doesn't come easy, but we do get there.

(crowd cheering) - Whoever we are, wherever we are, we can all come together in the key of Bach.

(symphony orchestra music)