Three Letters at the Bottom of the Page

At the bottom of nearly every manuscript he composed, Johann Sebastian Bach inscribed three Latin letters: S.D.G. — Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory. For twenty-seven years as Thomaskantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Bach wrote cantatas for Sunday services, trained choir boys, and poured his genius into music most of the world would not hear for over a century. In 1748 and 1749, with his eyesight failing, Bach gathered compositions spanning decades of his career and wove them into a single monumental work — the Mass in B Minor. He revised old movements, composed new ones, and assembled what many regard as the greatest choral composition ever written. Yet no church in Lutheran Saxony could have performed it in full. The work exceeded any single liturgical occasion. Bach wrote it anyway.

Why? Those three letters tell us. Bach did not compose for applause or posterity. He composed for an audience of One. Every fugue, every soaring Sanctus, every note was an act of worship offered upward.

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:19, "singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." The beauty we create — whether music, a well-tended garden, or a kind word spoken in season — finds its highest purpose when offered to God. Bach's pen reminds us: whatever you do today, do it S.D.G. Let the Lord be your audience, and let beauty be your prayer.