Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most famous composers, and one of the most prolific, of all time.  He composed for several different instruments, including the piano, and he led a life gripped by the passion of his art.  His “Orgelbuchlein”, or “little organ book”, was composed while he was a resident musician at the ducal court in Weimar, Germany, and is certainly stunning.  His Great Eighteen chorales are considered one of his crowning achievements, and his six trio sonatas are some of the most beloved by history. Despit this, what makes these musical delights not only classics, but groundbreaking musical achievements that earmarked all Bach piano pieces as works of genius?

First, one of the most important keys to understand Bach piano pieces is understanding the artist’s available information and the information that he strove to acquire.  A native to Germany, he was proficient in not only the German language, but the German style of music, and he recognized the sharp and cultural difference between musical stylings in his own country and language and those of neighboring countries.  He voraciously acquired not only the languages but the musical languages of nearby Italy and France.  He obsessively exposed himself to new music and new musicians, using them almost as we have come to understand a scanner: reading, assimilating, and reproducing the craft of other musicians so he could then piece it into his own understanding of music. 

He also felt that the connection between musical sound and the sound of language, not to mention the emotional might behind music as opposed to the more intellectual, communicative power behind words, was crucial to understand how music really plays into various worldwide cultures.  It’s fascinating to think that, almost exclusively, the two things that all cultures have developed throughout known history have been language and music, and he saw a decided link between those two.  Because of this understanding, he could freestyle music in much the same way that a person would ramble through a story and play around with the fluidity of the concept like someone might discuss a thesis.  It seems that music became a language all its own to him, and his piano pieces read like speeches, whole discussions on feelings, themes, thoughts and emotions.

Interestingly and most obviously, Bach piano pieces have a huge religious influence.  Bach supposedly had a deep and very personal relationship with God that he not only understood as real, but almost tangible, like God was responsible for his burgeoning genius.  In fact, many of his pieces take his fascination with the link between language and music to a new level, going so far as to almost reinterpret the text of the liturgies and gospels into song.  He did this in such a way that it wove together the common, accepted forms of music that were popular to the average person and the more experimental, more exalted forms that he was creating and weaving together.  He not only worshipped in his own unique and highly personal, passionate way, but he exalted music into a new way for the common man to worship, a new way for the masses to understand God.

Johann Sebastian Bach piano pieces may well have revolutionized the way that people understood and studied music, because his own mind experienced music in a way that no one else in his time (or quite possibly, thereafter) ever did.  The huge volume of work that he produced and then left behind has become one of the greatest collections of musical product that the world has ever experienced.