Bach is known to be a devout Lutheran. We often see people talk about the overt religious symbolism in his vocal works. Who will have to eliminate that level of instrumental music? The purpose of this article is to serve as an interpretation of what Bach may have been thinking about when writing his six violin sonatas andpartita. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Johann Sebastian Bach, “the fifth evangelist,” is known for writing music that reflects his beliefs as a devout Lutheran. As Bach himself wrote, “the sole purpose and reason of all music should be nothing other than the glory of God and pleasant recreations. Where this is not taken into account there can be no real music, but only an infernal scraping and screaming." Countless research has been conducted on Bach's sacred vocal music, discovering the religious symbolism between the text and the music itself. But surely this symbolism is not limited to Bach's vocal music alone. For since Bach believed that all music was intended to glorify the Lord, his instrumental music must also have religious symbols that reflect his Lutheran beliefs. Indeed, the evidence shows that this must be the case, for the dedication of Bach's Little Organ Book reads: "Dem Höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren/ Dem Nächsten, draus sich zu belehren" ("Inscribed in honor of the Lord Most High/ And so that my neighbor can be educated therefore”). structure.This is why I am led to believe that there is a religious symbolism in this collection of works: he was a devout Lutheran said that “God preached the Gospel through music” and also that music is close to theology. Probably you will go back and find a source that talks about why Bach became a devout Lutheran. Bach's Six Violin Solos without Bass Accompaniment is a curious collection of works. There has been much debate about the original title of the collection, " Sei Solo a Violin senza Basso accompanied" and whether Bach intentionally wrote it in grammatically incorrect Italian (to be grammatically correct, sei solo should be changed to sei soli). Clearly Bach was not incompetent in Italian, this is evident in his manuscripts where he uses grammatically correct plural forms in his instrumentation such as violins and voices, so a lack of understanding of the Italian language is not to blame. So Bach must have been intentional in his wording, you are alone (correctly translated means you are alone). Also place the phrase you are alone separately from the rest of the title to distinguish it from the rest of the title. The question is: why does he do it? Some say that Sei Solo is intended to pay homage to the death of his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach, which occurred in the same year that Sei Solo was completed. This may be plausible but, in line with Bach's words, the You in "You Are Alone" could more likely refer to Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, God is exalted for His “solitude” or His oneness. Since He “alone made the heaven and the earth,” He “alone” is “the Most High” and “alone is the Lord.” This tension is maintained throughout the New Testament describing Christ. The “only begotten Son” of God, Jesus is alone in his crucifixion abandoned by man and God, bearing the sins of humanity as the “sole mediator between God and men.” It is also noteworthy that Bach often wrote “Soli Deo Gloria” (To God Alonelet there be glory) at the end of his scores. Here, the intentional wordplay of You Are Alone (the number six or six a perfect number used to exemplify the perfection of God and His works) referring to the perfect sinless Lamb of Lambs, Jesus Christ, seems highly probable. If Bach really titled this collection with this intent, then consequently the six works (three sonatas and threepartitas, perhaps alluding to the trinity) must follow the story of the passion of Jesus Christ. In this way, the rest of this article interprets the religious symbolism of the Six Alones following the narrative of Christ. How It All Connects If you assume that the Solo Six follow the Gospel, it is not surprising that the holistic structure of the collection is chiastic. The respective keys of the six solos (gbadCE) are presented chiastically: GB is an M3, BA is an m7, AD is a P4 (the midpoint), DC is an m7, and CE is an M3. At first glance, the viewer might be baffled by the complexity of the chiasm; after all, the simplest way to create a chiastic structure would be to simply reverse the order of the heights at the midpoint (ex: gbaABG). However, if plotted on a staff you notice that the gbadCE pitches are not simply a shuffled hexachord. Instead, a pattern is evident: the second half of the structure is the transposition of the retrograde inversion. This is intriguing because in context, this form due to inversion could be considered the backbone of the gospel story: the Almighty becomes a humble servant to raise the humble to glory. Another notable feature of the overall structure is that the keys of G minor and E major are harmonic antitheses of each other (if you look at the circle of fifths). Not only that, but G and E are also the lowest and highest strings on the violin, respectively. This contrast between the two extremes is often used in the Bible: for example, Jesus refers to Himself as “alpha and omega, the first and the last” in Revelation and Romans 8:38 uses the juxtaposition of “neither death nor life ”. . . neither present nor future” to express the impossibility of separating oneself from the love of God. The juxtaposition of two antitheses, therefore, is used to connote completeness and by using this juxtaposition Bach may have been addressing the totality of God's grace and love – following the narrative of the Gospel. The overall architecture of the Six Solos leaves no doubt that Bach had a religious intent in composing the collection. In this article, this article will turn to the individual works that make up the Six Solos in order to gain a better understanding of what this intent may have been. Chaconne Symbolism Since the revival of Joseph Joachim's Six Solos, the Chaconne has been the prime candidate for countless reinterpretations and analyses. Its complex structure has been a constant source of confusion for scholars because of how close it comes to matching the golden ratio. Indeed, if the Chaconne were to be divided into its three parts (33 four-measure ostinato statements in D, 19 ostinato statements in D and ending with 12 ostinato statements in d) it would come frustratingly close to the golden ratio: the second and third sections. in line with the Ratio but in the first section two stubborn statements longer than necessary to fit the proportion. Some believe that this is sufficient to explain the structure of the Chaconne while others argue that the structure of the Chaconne is best understood by excluding the initial eight measures of the piece, or the first two ostinatos, which would give the structure of 31-19-12. Again this explanation seems barely sufficient as it does not explain why the opening thematic phrase should be excluded and not the two occurrences (with slight variation) of the opening material which.