Bach, Hamilton, And Ambition In Our WorkSample

Johann Sebastian Bach

There are some striking similarities in the life stories of Johann Sebastian Bach, the famed composer, and Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s founding fathers and its first Secretary of the Treasury. Both Bach and Hamilton were orphaned at an early age. Both pursued their work with unimaginable energy. And both were made famous through their writings (music for Bach and laws and treatises for Hamilton).

Where their stories diverge is in their motivations for their work and why they worked so hard. As we’ll see over the course of this three-day plan, those differences in motives led to very different consequences for these two men and provide an excellent case study for us as we seek to understand what the Bible has to say about work, ambition, and the reasons why we create.

But first, let’s take a closer look at the life of Johann Sebastian Bach who, from an early age, sensed God calling him to create culture through the realm of music. As Bach entered the workforce, he knew precisely what he felt God was calling him to do: to marry his love of music and theology to achieve his “goal of a well-regulated church music”—defined by Bach as a series of cantatas (fifteen- to thirty-minute narrative pieces of music) for all Sundays and Feast Days of the Church year. With his appointment as cantor (eighteenth-century speak for “worship leader”) of Leipzig, Bach was given an opportunity to pursue his life’s work. And “he pursued it with unimaginable energy,” composing nearly 120 cantatas in his first two years on the job. Even with Bach’s extraordinary work ethic, he managed to lead a growing family of twenty children and maintain two happy marriages (his first wife tragically passed away). 

So what motivated Bach to work with such “unimaginable energy”? Bach had reimagined his work not as a means of making a name for himself; instead, Bach believed that, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

While today we recognize Bach as one of the greatest composers who ever lived, his work wasn’t celebrated until long after his death. But the lack of recognition didn’t appear to faze Bach. At the end of his compositions, Bach inscribed the Latin phrase Soli Deo Gloria meaning “Glory to God alone”—a reminder to Bach and history of why he created and Whose recognition he sought.

Whose recognition are you seeking in your work? The recognition of God or of man? As we’ll see over the next two days, the answer to this question can have dramatic consequences.