I want you to imagine yourself as a German peasant in the early 1700s. Bear with me for a second.

Your life is mostly silent. Yes, you hear the sound of the wind brushing up against your wooden shutters.

You hear birds singing in the morning. You hear the crack of the axe as it bites into cold timber, the quiet patter of livestock.

But what you don't hear is music every single day, the way that a person

living in 2025 does. It is mostly small, quiet, ambient sounds. And then it's time for church.

You pull off your stiff woolen coat, gather your children, and walk into town. And that's when you

hear this. The music isn't just outside of you, it's within you. The organ pipes seem to shake the entire church and everything in it. You're listening to the music of your local organist, Johann Sebastian Bach.

I find it just amazing to think that some of the greatest, most universal music in history

was created for church services in a little town in the middle of Germany of less than 10,000 people.

Johann Sebastian Bach isn't just one of the great classical composers.

He's one of the great artists of all time in any medium, up there with Da Vinci and Shakespeare.

So today we're talking about a man whose music has reached farther than any empire, lasted longer than most religions, and inspired a kind of devotion typically reserved for saints or prophets.

We're going to see how he was able to compose not only such great and transcendent music, but so much of it.

We're also going to be taking a look at what his music meant to him and what it means for us.

Welcome to How to Take Over the World.

I'm going to show you how great I am.

This is that's a tiny fellow.

I just want to say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

Hello, and welcome to how to Take Over the World.

This has Ben Wilson.

Many people remember that when in 1977 the Voyager spacecraft was launched, opinions were canvassed as to what artifacts would be most appropriate to leave in outer space as a signal

of man's cultural

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