![]() ![]() Individual preferences and tastes rule the day. Anyone seeking to speak as if the God that made the universe is Lord over every music note and rhythm is seen as misguided. Not only do we not see the importance of having the God of the Bible be Lord over beauty and aesthetics, but we don’t even want to speak as if beauty in music and in art are anything more than personal preference. We have not been as productive in understanding the importance of rooting out relativism when it comes to how we see and understand beauty. Christians have come to realize the importance of God’s truth and goodness in creation. Today, this relativism is as prominent in the areas of aesthetics and beauty as it has been in truth and goodness over past decades. Music’s value is now defined by the individual that hears it, making it snobbery to suggest any greater connection to others and creation. In simpler terms, music went from being seen, heard, understood, and composed in context of a universal harmony (or cosmic centered symphony) to being relegated to the space between the ears of the individual that hears it, a man-centered view. This movement’s legacy in music and in art in general has been a steady move from what musicologist Jeremy Begbie and others have described as a ‘cosmocentric’ view to an ‘anthropocentric’ view. For in the twilight of Bach’s life, there was a shift in thought that became the movement we know as The Enlightenment. Why would this be common practice then and not now, and why does that even matter? The short answer is individualism. Arguably, had Mendelssohn and Bach not glorified the hymn, it would not have experienced its widespread use in the church today. Numerous composers like Bach and even Mendelssohn gave the hymn new settings, dynamics and instrumentation when such composers most certainly could have simply written altogether new music. This hymn (like many others in the canon of church music since the Reformation) has been redeveloped and glorified into new forms ushering it to new generations of believers. But a closer examination of it spotlights an important aspect of church music that has been forgotten by modern Christians. This hymn’s call to thankfulness at face value seems simple enough. For many years, I’ve sung this hymn in churches and in gatherings of friends and relatives. The story of this hymn and ones like it highlight an important facet of classical education that is not immediately apparent-thankfulness for what has come before. ” is the opening line to that famous church hymn Nun Danket Alle Gott text by Martin Rinkart that was set to music by Johann Crüger in 1647. Thankfulness builds on the understanding of what has come before, using that to move further up and in, never despising its foundation.įor example, “Now Thank We All Our God with heart and hands and voices. That trait simply put is called thankfulness. The chief reason that Bach came to be a household name mirrors the reason we study the Western classics in this thing known as Classical Christian Education. At least 10 generations of Bach’s were musicians in the territories we refer to today as Germany. ![]() Johann Sebastian Bach was not a household name when he died despite the fact that his family name was to music much like the name Rockefeller is to oil and Kennedy is to politics in America today. Bach and Mendelssohn’s lives and works provide a relevant reminder and clarion call to why we seek to train from an awareness of what has come before us. Far beyond the musical richness of Bach’s music and even Mendelssohn’s music lies a greater trait that calls to us moderns who seek to stand on the shoulders of our brothers in the faith. Little did he know that five years later that same gift would introduce a more lasting global gift-the music of Sebastian Bach.īach’s music had been mostly dormant for almost 80 years before Mendelssohn’s 1829 centennial revival of it would open eyes and ears to the name of Bach. The year was 1824 when then 15-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was given by his grandmother a copy of the score of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. ![]()
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