Johann Sebastian Bach

Begin with Bach The lowdown -- New Year's Day is a perfect time to hear the life-enriching music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His Cantata No. 186 - Argre dich, o Seele, nicht ("Trouble not thyself, O my Soul") - is the featured work on Sunday's Bach Concert Series presentation at First English Lutheran Church. The remarkable series, founded and conducted by T. Herbert Dimmock, offers a free performance of music by Bach with chorus, soloists and orchestra on the first Sunday of the month. This program will also include Lux Aeterna by the late American composer Edwin Fissinger, performed in memory of Lorenzo Handy, a popular minister and arts writer of the Baltimore Times who was the victim of a homicide earlier this month.

Crawling along the floor in front of a Steinway grand, Michael Lawrence aims his camera at two hands busily moving across the keys to articulate complex baroque counterpoint. The resulting close-up isn't just about the actual pianist doing the playing. It says something, too, maybe even more, about the Baltimore filmmaker. Lawrence is trying to zoom in on nothing less than the enduring, inspiring genius of Johann Sebastian Bach. The film, known as the Bach Project until an official name is chosen, had its final shoot on Friday in New York with celebrated composer Philip Glass.

Ten recitals in four days. More than 18 hours of music. More than 200 compositions written for the organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, all played by one determined young man. "It's just one of these bizarre things organists do," says Donald Sutherland, coordinator of the organ department at the Peabody Institute, speaking about the rare Bach marathon planned this weekend by his star student. The Bach Organ Marathon takes place at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday; and 7 p.m. Monday at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place.

CLASSICAL MUSIC 'Well-Tempered Clavier' If asked to identify the single most important work of keyboard music, in terms of originality, depth and long-lasting influence, many a scholar would point to the Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach. Book I of this brilliant collection of preludes and fugues will be performed in its entirety on the harpsichord by Richard Egarr, who recently became music director of England's top-drawer Academy of Ancient Music. This presentation by the Shriver Hall Concert Series will take place at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

In 1705, a 20-year-old organist from Arnstadt, Germany, set out by foot on a 560-mile journey to Luebeck and back to hear a man nearly 50 years his senior play the organ.To the young Johann Sebastian Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude was clearly a great man. But to too many current listeners, the Danish composer is just a name, important enough in his own time, and to the development of J. S. Bach, to earn a 12-page entry in "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians."That he was also an astoundingly great composer was made vivid Saturday night in Friedberg Hall of the Peabody Conservatory.

"The Greatest Story Ever Told" long ago became one of the greatest sagas ever sung in Johann Sebastian Bach's supremely dramatic "Passion According to St. John."This masterwork will be performed Saturday in Annapolis by conductor J. Ernest Green and the soloists, orchestra and choir of his Annapolis Chorale.When Bach sat down in 1723 to compose the musical version of Jesus Christ's final days on Earth, there was nothing new about Christians celebrating Easter. A liturgical tradition dated to medieval times.

When all is said and heard, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach remains both the foundation and pinnacle of Western art. His B minor Mass alone proves that. Everything Bach learned and everything he could teach is found here - and not just principles of counterpoint and harmony. In his grandly scaled setting of the Latin liturgical text, Bach also demonstrated an enormous range of expression, musical and personal. As a testament to one man's faith, the Mass is monumental enough. The work also unhesitatingly embraces all of humanity and makes a profound, universal plea for peace in this life and the world to come.

If Western music had ended with Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor in 1749, we would still be culturally rich. Hearing this ever-astonishing score, which was given an earnest performance Sunday by the Handel Choir of Baltimore at Goucher College, it's easy to agree with Charles Gounod's summation of the composer: "He has said all there is to say." The entire spectrum of the baroque art - counterpoint, fugue, dancing rhythms - is enshrined in this work, which Bach assembled toward the end of his life out of old and new material.

What better way to celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday Saturday than with a "Bach Birthday Bash," thrown by Ernest Green's Annapolis Chamber Chorus and Orchestra at St. Anne's Church in the capital city.Two Bach cantatas -- No. 51, "Jauchzet Gott!", the festive work for solo soprano and trumpet obbligato, and "Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern" (How Beautifully the Morning Star Gleams) which is No. 1, -- were offered, as well as the 2nd Orchestral Suite and the premiere of "Happy Birthday Mr. Bach," a delightful birthday tribute by Annapolis composer Leonard Moses.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Johann Sebastian Bach's career as an 18th-century church musician was the sheer regularity with which he churned out masterpiece after masterpiece keyed to the Christological cycle of the church year. Week in and week out, from Pentecost to Advent, from Epiphany to Lent, Bach crafted cantatas, motets and chorales inspired by the fluid rhythms of Christian liturgy. The staggering consistency of Bach's efforts and his influence on later composers will be saluted tomorrow evening at St. John's College when the Scholars of London sing sacred music from the 17th to the 20th century in a program titled "Bach Chorales and the Church Year."

Imagine Peter Shaffer's Amadeus brought to you by the Marx Brothers and you pretty much get the gist of Itamar Moses' play Bach at Leipzig, which is in production at Rep Stage on the campus of Howard Community College through April 1. The 1722 appointment of Johann Sebastian Bach as music director of the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, Germany, was, without a doubt, the momentous hiring in music history. It is not that old J.S. had been a slouch in his earlier gigs. During his six-year hitch at Cothen, for example, he had composed the Brandenburg concertos, the Four Orchestral Suites, his seven keyboard concertos, and Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier, among others.

Ten recitals in four days. More than 18 hours of music. More than 200 compositions written for the organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, all played by one determined young man. "It's just one of these bizarre things organists do," says Donald Sutherland, coordinator of the organ department at the Peabody Institute, speaking about the rare Bach marathon planned this weekend by his star student. The Bach Organ Marathon takes place at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday; and 7 p.m. Monday at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place.

Johann Sebastian Bach had his share of Rodney Dangerfield-like difficulties when it came to getting respect. One employer threw him in jail for a month when he asked permission to take a better job; others regarded him as a tiresome, not particularly talented servant. He sent six of his finest instrumental pieces - the Brandenburg Concertos - to a nobleman who apparently never acknowledged, let alone valued, them. But Bach got posthumous revenge on the unappreciative folks he encountered - in the form of artistic immortality.

Begin with Bach The lowdown -- New Year's Day is a perfect time to hear the life-enriching music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His Cantata No. 186 - Argre dich, o Seele, nicht ("Trouble not thyself, O my Soul") - is the featured work on Sunday's Bach Concert Series presentation at First English Lutheran Church. The remarkable series, founded and conducted by T. Herbert Dimmock, offers a free performance of music by Bach with chorus, soloists and orchestra on the first Sunday of the month. This program will also include Lux Aeterna by the late American composer Edwin Fissinger, performed in memory of Lorenzo Handy, a popular minister and arts writer of the Baltimore Times who was the victim of a homicide earlier this month.

When all is said and heard, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach remains both the foundation and pinnacle of Western art. His B minor Mass alone proves that. Everything Bach learned and everything he could teach is found here - and not just principles of counterpoint and harmony. In his grandly scaled setting of the Latin liturgical text, Bach also demonstrated an enormous range of expression, musical and personal. As a testament to one man's faith, the Mass is monumental enough. The work also unhesitatingly embraces all of humanity and makes a profound, universal plea for peace in this life and the world to come.

J. Ernest Green's Annapolis Chorale and Chamber Orchestra presented Johann Sebastian Bach's deeply devotional monumental oratorio St. John Passion on Saturday at Saint Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis. Performing the work in German, music director Green added historic authenticity by presenting Bach's oratorio much as it was originally done at Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, where it was first performed in 1724. Green invited the audience to sing certain passages along with chorale members who were seated in the side sections of the church.

Johann Sebastian Bach saw himself more as a musical artisan than as any kind of incandescent genius, so chances are he would have been shocked at the notion that the 313th anniversary of his birth would inspire celebrations by music lovers all over the world.But if any musician deserves a birthday bash, it must be the creator of the "B-minor Mass," the "Brandenburg Concertos," monumental works for solo organ and "Well-Tempered Clavier," whose visionary sense of harmony transformed music in the 18th century and continues to define its essence today.

They were the first self-made millionaires in modern history: a group of Italian merchant princes whose quest for human self-sufficiency would become the defining energy of their age.The Renaissance, as their era would be called to reflect their interest in the rebirth of classical antiquity, would trigger perhaps the most breathtaking explosion of art the world has known.In burgeoning urban centers like Florence, they prayed, plotted, ran municipal affairs and held court in a style grand enough to inspire envy among the kings and popes who were their contemporaries.

If Western music had ended with Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor in 1749, we would still be culturally rich. Hearing this ever-astonishing score, which was given an earnest performance Sunday by the Handel Choir of Baltimore at Goucher College, it's easy to agree with Charles Gounod's summation of the composer: "He has said all there is to say." The entire spectrum of the baroque art - counterpoint, fugue, dancing rhythms - is enshrined in this work, which Bach assembled toward the end of his life out of old and new material.

Music is not, at heart, a visual medium. But what struck me about the Atlantica Chamber Orchestra, which made its debut at Pascal Theater on Friday, was how snappy this new ensemble looked. Founded and led by Annapolis Symphony concertmaster Philip Spletzer, the chamber orchestra is chock-full of handsome young string players of both sexes. Truly, it made for marvelous theater to watch them as they stood regally on stage, elegantly fiddling their hearts out in the G minor "Concerto Grosso" of Arcangelo Corelli.