Book is in French Bach's music is inseparable from the Lutheran chorale. These modest hymns, known to all, have innervated all German music for half a millennium. Their stature and their melodic profiles gave birth to the art of composers, even in secular music from which most of these themes came. We encounter chorale melodies everywhere in Bach's work. The listeners of the time recognized them instantly, their words immediately appeared in their minds and these words illuminated the meaning of the works by justifying them. If this choral culture is no longer ours today, it remains essential to anyone who wants to deepen the meaning of the works, their philosophical and spiritual message. - Gilles Cantagrel