The Infant Revolution in Bach’s Christmas Music

Albrecht Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1504.Uffizi, Florence. (public domain)

Christmas is a dangerous time, for it threatens social instability, political disorder, even revolution. At the culmination of the story, kings kneel before a helpless baby; the powerful pay tribute to the seemingly powerless. To understand the destabilizing potency of Christmas, one has only to recall Andreas Karlstadt, an iconoclast in the literal sense, shouting the words of institution in German—not Latin...