Por qué Bach era el compositor favorito de Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs had a penchant for eclectic tastes in music, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and contemporary compositions. However, when he needed to think, create, concentrate, or simply stop time, he repeatedly turned to Johann Sebastian Bach. Walter Isaacson's biography recounts how Jobs frequently listened to Bach's Variations Goldberg in Glenn Gould's legendary recordings, finding something more than just a musical interpretation.

It is intriguing that an innovative entrepreneur of our time found inspiration in a composer born in the 17th century. This may be because Bach not only wrote music but also built order within complexity. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, coming from a family of musicians. From a young age, he knew the trade and discipline intimately.

As an organist, composer, teacher, and conductor, he held various demanding roles throughout his life. In Leipzig in 1723, as the Kantor of St. Thomas Church, he had to provide music for religious services, teach school students, conduct musicians, and address the city's musical needs. Musicologist Christoph Wolff, a professor at Harvard University, spent much of his life reconstructing Bach's work and defining the man behind it.

In Bach's Musical Universe, Wolff presents a Bach far removed from the romantic image of a sudden genius touched by inspiration. Behind the music, there was an extraordinary formation, deep knowledge of tradition, and constant discipline. He studied, analyzed, taught, experimented, and perfected. There was talent, but also dedication and craftsmanship.

A quote Wolff cites about Bach's childhood describes his extraordinary love for music even at a young age. Before fame, recognition, or even imagining where his path would lead, there was a simpler love for what he did. Wolff quotes Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach's first biographer, who recounted that when asked decades later how he had mastered the art of music to such an elevated degree, Bach simply answered: "I had to be diligent.

Whoever is diligent will reach the same heights." Bach's humility is striking. He attributed his mastery not to exceptional abilities but to constancy and hard work. Journalist John Eliot Gardiner states in Music at the Castle of Heaven that Bach's music offers glimpses of terrible experiences, such as being orphaned in his lonely adolescence and mourning the loss of his spouse and father.

He reveals a deep disapproval of hypocrisy and impatience with falsehoods, but also a profound sympathy for those suffering or feeling sad in various ways or struggling with their conscience or beliefs. Wolff emphasizes that Bach was educated from a young age in the virtues of perseverance and constant work. However, there was something more: a curiosity with no apparent limits.

His desire to learn led him to explore and master the available repertoire in its entirety and depth, sparking interest in the mechanical engineering and technology used in organ construction. From his earliest compositions, he sought to go beyond models and venture into uncharted territories. When listening to Bach's Passion according to St. Matthew, one feels small and almost intimidated by music that seems to exist in a place yet to be discovered.