Words matter! That is the first premise of this book, and the author's audiences are two: those who believe that Bach's words are not equal to his music and should be ignored, and those who love the messenger all the more because of his message (except for a handful of problematic sentences).
Marissen's second premise is that Bach's musical settings interpret his words, and that their meanings, many times, hinge upon their musical treatment. Bach & God addresses its first thesis convincingly. As to its second, the musical analysis that it sometimes brings to bear is speculative at best. In “Cantata 44,” for example, Bach set these words: “the time is coming, however, that whoever kills you will suppose he is thus doing God a service.” The author concludes that these words “seem to conjure up specifically the ‘fear of the Jews,’” and as musical evidence notes that Bach set them in “formidable chromaticism” that bears an “extremely striking resemblance” to that performed by “the Jews” in a performance of the St. John Passion six weeks before (143).
Bach & God is composed entirely of reprinted essays from the author's earlier work. He had intended to title it “Essaying Bach and Religion,” but was persuaded by the publisher to use Bach & God so as “to grab the attention of the more general reader” (more about that later) (1). The book has seven chapters in four parts.
In Part One, Marissen attempts to clarify the meaning of a few lines, from a few cantatas, which though not of “an unwelcome polemical character” (to use his turn of phrase) are for various reasons unclear (4). In the second essay, he lavishes twenty-eight pages on ten obscure clauses by comparing varying translations, then proposing what he believes to be the correct Lutheran interpretation. Of no account in this discussion is Bach's musical setting of these words.
Parts Two and Three are devoted to the main topic, anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John, Luther's translation thereof, other Luther writings, the libretti of three cantatas, plus Bach's avoidance of anti-Judaism in the Saints John and Matthew Passions. This portion of the book (just over half of its contents) addresses little more than a half-dozen lines of text that compose but a quantum of Bach's libretti that are mostly not of Bach's composition, but those of his poet collaborators or of the evangelists John and Matthew.
As to the Gospels, Marissen mostly fixates on John, which he interprets apocalyptically as a cosmic battle between good and evil, belief and unbelief, Jews and Believers. He states that Luther correctly translated the Gospel in his use of “the Jews” as a cultic term (vis-à-vis geographical “Judeans”), and that Luther's other writings inflamed anti-Jewish behaviors in response (which clearly they did). Marissen proposes that, to Bach's credit, for dramatic and theological reasons, he declined to involve his passion music in the anti-Jewish polemic of his time. But, sadly, that problem arrives in three of his cantatas BWV 179, 42, and 44. Of these, only BWV 42 mentions Jews by name, which cantata Marissen sums up as showing “a marked contempt for Judaism” (5). Its topic is the persecution of Christians, in which the text uses “rhetorical Jews” (134–138), emblematic of Catholics persecuting Lutherans. Beyond “ferocious musical declamation, rhythmic animation, and textual repetition,” Bach's musical setting forwards this argument very little, with the author relying instead upon the composer's correction of typographical errors in his Bible, thereby showing that “Bach must have read this passage about the enmity of the Jews rather attentively” (135, 138). Seriously?
The single essay of Part Four, “The Theological Character of Bach's Musical Offering,” epitomizes “Bach & God at its very peak” (5). Here, for the first time, Marissen treats untexted music, although the Musical Offering's title, dedication to Frederick the Great, and written clues are essential to his thesis. Convincingly, he argues that the work is not “a pro-Enlightenment homage of ‘abstract’ chamber music . . . designed to honor its dedicatee, King Frederick . . . but was a carefully scored defense of anti-Enlightenment Lutheranism, designed primarily . . . to honor God” (7). Bach & God is well worth reading, if only to arrive at this point.
While the title—Bach & God—may succeed in opening the book to a wider audience, it does not advance the author's high view of words as possessed of meaning. If words matter, then the title disappoints on two accounts. As to the account of “God,” Marissen uses that word mostly as a metonym for “the religious content of Bach's music” (1). “God” does not mean in this book what he calls “the biblical deity.” In other words, the “god” of Bach & God is not the same as Bach's God.
As to the title's first word, again the author stipulates: “By ‘Bach’ I mostly mean ‘Bach's music’” (1). In this book, Bach is not a person, but his music. All of it? Well the index lists 5.7 percent of Bach's total output, 97 percent of which receives no more than passing mention. Indeed, long episodes of Bach & God are absorbed in highly selected and problematic lines of text for which the music seems to be of little note. To be fair, the author stipulates: “Although I see no reason to doubt that Bach's personal beliefs corresponded more or less to the religious content of his compositions, it is not logically necessary to demonstrate a connection, and so this book does not address biographical questions to any great extent” (3). That said, were one's only acquaintance with Bach to be the “religious content” of his compositions (by which the author seems mostly to mean a scant few lines of text), and if Bach & God were to be one's only acquaintance with that content, then Bach the man might come off as quite the bigot.
