By the time Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685, the place of the organ as a focus of the Lutheran church appeared unassailable, as integral as altar and pulpit. At the moment, alongside the congregational chorale, the organ is the sound of Lutheranism, a connection exemplified in Bach’s Clavierübung III (1739). This assortment of huge and small preludes on Martin Luther’s ‘catechism chorales’ cemented the intimate connection of vocal chorale and its elaboration on the organ. However for a lot of the 200 years between Luther’s Reformation and Bach’s appointment to the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, the instrument’s religious position was removed from assured.
