The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach is a film about the music of J. S. Bach, played and conducted by the famous Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, who impersonates Bach in Straub's fictional tableaux. The story of Bach's pursuit of his art is chronicled by his second wife in the form of letters, documents, contemporary engravings, and in Bach's own words. The film is the antithesis of the usual sentimental musical biography. It demonstrates that art is indeed hard work and that the nature of commitment is such that it almost always causes human suffering for those who surround the artist. In an uncanny way, Jean-Marie Straub's deliberately flat presentation reveals the miraculous and the sublime in the great music with tremendous power. Playing the players (and the music) in this well-researched chronicle are the members of the Concertus Musicus Wien.