Johann Sebastian Bach has been Referenced by...
Anime & Manga
- The End of Evangelion features both "Air" and a Lonely Piano Piece version of "Jesu, The Joy Of Man's Desiring" in its soundtrack. "Air" is even one of the titles for the first half of the film.
- The long fade-out of The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" includes a snippet of Two-Part Invention No.8.
- In a Peanuts strip, Lucy tells Schroeder that she plans to write her summer school theme on "Johnny Sebastian Bach". After Schroeder tries in vain to correct her, she decides to write about Bobby Orr instead.
- Nigel from This is Spın̈al Tap says that he's influenced by both Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and refers to "Lick My Love Pump" as a Mach piece.
- In Breaking and Entering (2006), Amira silently plays a Bach piece on a keyboard that isn't connected to anything.
- In The Commitments, when Steven is playing Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" on a church organ, Jimmy claims they stole the tune from Marvin Gaye, and Steven points out, "He nicked it from Bach."
- In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Bach is a guest speaker at Bill & Ted University in the future.
- Petra from I Think I Love You practices Bach suites on her cello.
- In Eye of a Fly, Ernest plays Bach in his head as he walks. Later, he finds a record of Eugene Ormandy's orchestral transcriptions of Bach organ music at the library.
- Adam from Eye Contact was once able to identify a piece of elevator music as Bach, but couldn't give an impressed stranger his name or age.
- Grant from Underdogs plays Bach over the speakers in Marshall's office, to Marshall's annoyance.
- After Hip from More Than Human recovers from his Identity Amnesia, one of the things he remembers about himself is that he loves Bach.
- In Marcelo in the Real World, Bach is Marcelo's favorite composer.
- Arthur C. Clarke wrote of Bach's music assuaging solitude in two of his best-known novels.
- As Jan is waiting for his existence to end in Childhood's End, he spends the time playing Bach on his electronic piano.
- On the space journey to Saturn in 2001, Dave Bowman gradually discards all other music and only finds peace listening to the "abstract architecture" of Bach.
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has a plot point where, thanks to a twist on You Will Be Beethoven, J. S. Bach never actually existed; Prof. Chronitis stole some unearthly beautiful alien music and planted it in the Baroque era using Bach as a pseudonym. In real life Bach was also Douglas Adams' favorite composer; he was especially fond of "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ" (BWV 6) which he listened to while writing, considering it an "absolutely perfect" piece of music.
- In the Tempest (2011) trilogy, Tempest's surfer friend Bach got his nickname because he rides the waves as beautifully as Johann Sebastian composed music.
- In The October Child, Douglas and Tessa listen to jazz versions of Bach compositions in Douglas's room.
Literature
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: The entirety of Back's works is actually the music of the motions of every particle of matter as read by an alien supercomputer and injected into history by a time traveller because he felt bad about blowing it up.
- In the Adam-12 episode "A Sound Like Thunder," a secretly-cultured member of a criminal biker gang paints "Bach" on his motorcycle. His friends can't pronounce it, resulting in his nickname, Batch.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022):
- "Is My Very Nature That of a Devil": Lestat de Lioncourt mistakenly ascribes Bach ("...the man had 20 children in his lifetime") as the composer of the "Minuet in G Minor" piano piece that he's performing onstage at the Azalea; it was in fact written by Christian Petzold.
- "The Thing Lay Still": While Louis de Pointe du Lac is decorating their Christmas tree in 1939, Lestat is nearby playing on his piano Bach's "Partita in B-Flat Major, BWV 825: II. Allemande". Shortly afterwards, the biracial Claudia expresses her dislike of Bach's music because he's a German composer (Nazi Germany had instigated World War II three months prior). The racially insensitive Lestat assumes that Claudia's aversion to Bach's repertoire means that she's not "sophisticated" enough to appreciate it.Claudia: Bach. Always back to Bach.
Lestat: Bach is beyond you.
Claudia: Yes, the music of the master race is... not made for these mongrel ears.
- In M*A*S*H, when Radar wants to impress a new nurse with more refined interests, Radar is coached on how to fake that, primarily by referencing Bach.
- Radar : Ah… Bach.
Music
- P.D.Q. Bach owes his artist's name to Bach. The story goes that P.D.Q. was the 21st and least well-regarded of Bach's 20 children, disowned by the Bach family because his music was too stupid.
- Jon Lord's "Bach Onto This" is a Homage to Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
- Eurobeat Brony's "Discord" uses the Fugue for its intro.
- Wendy Carlos made a career out of covering Bach's music in Electronic Music, starting off with Switched-On Bach.
- Apollo 100's song "Joy" is a rock version of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."
- The Byrds' song "She Don't Care About Time" has a guitar solo based on "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring".
- Muse's "Plug-in Baby" starts off with the opening of Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
- The Kinks' "Wicked Annabella" briefly quotes "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in a bass fill.
- Sweetbox's Everything's Gonna Be Alright is based around "Air on the G String", from Bach's Orchestral Suite No.3.
- Live versions of "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin often include a snippet of Bach's Bourrée in E minor.
- Similarly, the Jethro Tull song "Bourrée" opens with Ian Anderson playing Bourrée in E minor on the flute.
- Megadeth's "Last Rites", based on Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565).
- "Repent Walpurgis" by Procol Harum contains an excerpt of Prelude No. 1 in C major from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Procol Harum's greatest hit was "A Whiter Shade of Pale" - based on the Air from Orchestral Suite No.3.
- Symphony X samples, among other pieces, Bach's Mass in B Minor in "Divine Wings of Tragedy". Further on the album V-The New Mythology Suite we also hear excerpts from Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord in D minor (BWV 1052) and the cantata Ich habe meine Zuversicht (BWV 188).
- Fitting the subject of the song, Sakanaction's "Bach no Senritsu o Yoru ni Kiita Sei Desu" ("Because Of Listening To Bach Melodies At Night") includes a short Bach snippet played on the piano.
- Toccata and Fugue in D minor is the basis for the Gyruss theme song.
- A Touhou Project music arrange
for Kanako Yasaka's theme, Suwa Foughten Field, begins with the opening of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. - "Golbez, Clad in Darkness" from Final Fantasy IV quotes Toccata and Fugue in D minor as well.
- The Civilization series have J.S. Bach's Cathedral as a Wonder you can build. In Civ. II, the cutscene that plays upon finishing its construction features Toccata and Fugue in D minor as background music.
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner plays an organ version of Two Part Invention No.13 as background music in the Hotel Goumaden. Its sequel, Soul Hackers, features a piano version in the same location, but only after you perform a fusion or let the first piece of music finish.
- Bach has a cameo appearance in Epic Rap Battles of History during the duel between Justin Bieber and Ludwig van Beethoven.
- Fantasia starts off with Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which, true to the music's fashion, is a series of abstract images.
- Il Était Une Fois...... L' Homme started off with Toccata and Fugue in D minor as its theme music.
- The Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum episode "I Am Johann Sebastian Bach" features Bach when he was a kid.
