Instruments of Worship
The Instruments of Worship Podcast, hosted by Casey Rinkenberger, is dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to lift high the name of Jesus with their instruments and their lives. Tune in every Monday for a new episode!
Instruments of Worship
Soli Deo Gloria: J.S. Bach's Faith and More with Dr. Rebekah Franklin | Ep. 30
Have you heard that Johann Sebastian Bach was a devoted Christian but never really learned why people say that? In today’s episode, I sit down with Dr. Rebekah Franklin to explore who Bach was—not just as a composer, but as a person of faith. Together, we uncover how Bach’s belief in God shaped his music and inspired him to create with excellence, even when his work wasn’t fully recognized or celebrated in his time. We also discuss following God's plan for your life when it's different than what you expect, the impact of Bach's music throughout time, the musician's struggle to interpret Bach's music, and how Bach's music can even start spiritual conversations with nonbelievers. I know you’ll be encouraged by this conversation and inspired to hear how Bach gave God the glory in his music career. You won’t want to miss my interview with Dr. Rebekah Franklin!
Discussion Questions - Try discussing with a friend or in our Facebook Discussion Group
- How were you encouraged by Rebekah’s story?
- How have you been able to see the Lord leading even if it’s not how you expected?
- Has the Lord ever led you into something that was very different than what you had planned? What was it like giving up your plans?
- Why is it important to say “no” to some musical opportunities? How do you determine what to say “yes” to and what to say “no” to?
- What are some of your favorite time management tips?
- Did you learn anything new about the life and Christian faith of J.S. Bach? If so, what was it?
- Bach strived for excellence in his music whether or not it was recognized by the audience. What does this say about him and how might that encourage you to play skillfully as unto the Lord?
- How can you include “Soli Deo Gloria” more into your life and make it your heart’s desire?
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Hi friends, my name is Casey Rinkenberger, and I am so excited to welcome you to the Instruments of Worship Podcast. This is a podcast dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to apply the name of Jesus with their instruments but also their lives. I am so excited for today's episode because we are going to get to learn about the Christian faith and the life of one of the world's most renowned composers, and that is JS Bach. I've wanted to do a podcast on the faith of specific composers for a while now, but I am certainly no expert when it comes to that arena. So I'm so thankful that today in our episode, I get to have a conversation with an expert. My special guest today is Dr. Rebecca Franklin. Currently, Rebecca is an adjunct professor of music history and director of the Bison Baroque Ensemble at Oklahoma Baptist University. She has a PhD in musicology, a master's degree in historical musicology, her bachelor's in child performance, plus she has an early music pedagogy certificate. Needless to say, Rebecca knows what she's talking about. She currently is studying J.S. Box Passions in 21st century American festival contexts and how performing these works creates spaces where performers and audience members can engage with the work's religious topics. She also currently serves as the social media editor for the American Box Society and is the editor of Bach Notes, the society's newsletter. You will not want to miss my conversation with Dr. Rebecca Franklin. So let's get into today's episode of the Instruments of Worship Podcast. Well, hi Rebecca. Thank you so much for being willing to come on the show today.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm so so excited to get to hear from you. I would love to start out by just hearing what you do and who you are.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm a lecturer in music history at Oklahoma Baptist University, which means that I am part-time and I teach the music history sequence here, so I'm the go-to person if you have a history question or just want to know about music history here, which is really fun. Um and I also get to collaborate with other faculty here through our Bison Borough program, which I direct, so I get to play with them. I play the cello, that was my undergraduate degree, so I get to play continuo cello for that, and um it's really fun. We're about to have a concert coming up, and I'll get to do some continuous for some Bach for a lovely singer that we have, so I'm I'm excited for that too.
SPEAKER_00:And you're a wife and a mom and busy doing other stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, yeah. So the the lecture thing is part-time, which is really good because uh the rest of my time is spent with my two lovely daughters who I uh enjoy being with ever so much, and uh they are very musical and very talented and very curious, and so we're having a blast watching them grow up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh that's so exciting. I would love that if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about it, your testimony, how you came to know the Lord as your savior.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I grew up in a very Christian household. My dad is a Southern Baptist uh minister of music and organist, so that that'll tie in a little bit later with some of our Bach discussion, I think. Uh so I grew up um, you know, hearing really good church music and just, you know, being doing all the church things that a little kid can do, you know, going to Sunday school, doing Bible school, music camp at church, like all those different things. Um and so at a pretty young age I understood enough that I wanted to accept Jesus as my savior, and so I did that when I was, I think, five and a half. So I was pretty young when I, you know, actually invited Jesus into my heart. Um and of course, from that point on, it was a matter of growth and of sanctification. And so, you know, going through high school, um, I think people everybody has various things going on in high school that are hard, and so you know, kind of finding how my faith fit with some of that, you know, being in a youth orchestra where certainly not everybody was a Christian, and there was that was probably my first introduction to a lot more like antagonism towards Christianity in some cases, and so kind of figuring out how to deal with that. And I think probably through that, um, I realized that you know, I knew I wanted to pursue cello in college, but I felt like maybe I wanted to go to a Christian college so that I could really focus on cello and it not be quite as much having to deal with like fighting for my faith 24-7, if that makes sense. Like I wanted to just go practice and not have to, which maybe is lazy, I don't know, but um that's that's how I felt. And so I researched Christian schools and I had done um Crater Chamber Music Camp, which is a faith-based camp up at Oberlin Conservatory, for I did that many years um through high school and during the summer, and so I met some Wheaton faculty there, and so when I was researching schools, I was like, oh yeah, Wheaton's one, I need to look at that. And so when I was looking on the website and everything and reading about it, I was like, this feels like the right choice. And so we did the you know, standard college visit thing, and I was like, Yeah, this this feels right. And so by the grace of the Lord, I got in and I got enough scholarship to sort of make it work, and so and so that's where I went for undergrad, and it was um while I was there, it was just a really fantastic experience working with the faculty, getting to go to chapel multiple times a week, really having faith be at the center. They do integration of faith and learning very well there, or at least they did while I was there. I haven't been back in a long time, but um, so I enjoyed that. And um and I met my husband there. We didn't date there, but we got to know each other. He was also in the conservatory, he's um the professor of piano here at OBU now, and so um so we got to know each other really well there, and then we ended up um going to the same grad school, and that's where we started dating and everything. So um, and then going to grad school. So like I felt like Wheaton was a time where my faith was very much refined and honed, and I learned a lot and I studied a lot. You know, you kind of have to study some theology classes and stuff there, so like I studied and got more in depth there. Um, but it wasn't really until grad school where I sort of faced that antagonism again, and so um I went to Florida State University, and it's you know, by no means it is it is certainly a secular school, and it and I had a really good education there, and I'm appreciative of everything I learned there. Um, but it was very much like some people really had a problem with Christianity, and some people had been hurt by the church before, and some people, you know, just a lot of different stories there, and so it was tricky for me because I went there to study musicology and I wanted to study Bach, who, as we will talk about, was a very faith-based composer. And so, you know, I'm running into all these people who are studying things that are very much not Christian, and and some things that are really interesting, some things that are different. And so it was um interesting for me to see like what's the best way to live my life here and to be a witness here when all of that is going on. Because it's not the kind of place, and especially in a degree like musicology, where everybody's very smart, like everybody's very intelligent, it's just whether or not they care about God, you know, and so it's like, well, you know, this like standing on the street corner being like Jesus loves you, that's not gonna work with this group of people, you know. So it's like, okay, so what's my best? And it really a lot of it was just them knowing that I went to church, them knowing that I, you know, played for church services on the cello, them knowing that I was not living with my husband before we got married, you know, I had a male roommate before my husband and I got married, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so it was kind of a quiet sort of witness, but I think that's probably the best I could have done at that time in my life anyway. So um, so just kind of living out my faith quietly. Um, and and of course, my research topic, having a lot to do. Like I studied the Bach Passions, which are about the crucifixion of Jesus. And so me reading a lot of stuff about that, having those books out in the graduate assistant lounge and all that kind of stuff, um, was you know its own sort of testimony, I think. So um, and then of course, my husband and I getting jobs here at OBU has been just wonderful because we're surrounded with people who love God and who are trying to integrate faith and learning here as well, and so being able to do that here is really I think comfortable is not quite the right word, but it feels right, it feels correct, at least for this time in my life, and so um, and I like being able to help students along their journeys as well and being able to more freely share my faith here than I might in a different um context, which is not to say I would never teach somewhere else, certainly I would, but um, if you know if the Lord called called me to, but um, but right now it feels really good to just be able to be talking more openly about my faith in the classroom, which is really nice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, wow. I love that overview. Um, I think what you said about first kind of encountering some pushback maybe to your faith in youth orchestra is something probably a lot of listeners could relate to. Sometimes when you're raised in a Christian home, a lot of your friends are Christians. And so youth orchestra or orchestra at school, whatever it might be, may be one of those opportunities where you you're faced with that for the first time and you get to work through that, but it certainly doesn't go away like you say when you go to you know higher level education and those sorts of things, or being a professional musician, that's why I started this podcast, you know, because it's an opportunity and we want to take it advantage of it as much as we can. But yeah, so thanks for sharing all about that. And you kind of covered my next question, which is just how did you get into music? Um, you s you talked about later on with music, but maybe uh can you say just from the beginning, what has your music journey been like, and did you always know you wanted to go into music, those sorts of things?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so my uh as I said, my dad is an organist and a music minister and all those things. My mom, um my mom's education is in music education, that was her degree, um, and she homeschooled us. So again, that's kind of another reason my orchestra was sort of my first like pushback is because I wasn't in like public school with a lot of people or something like that. But anyway, so um, so one of the rules of our house was like you have to take piano lessons at least through high school because it's good for your brain. Like whether or not you want to do anything else with it, that's fine. And you can do other things. So we all did other things, you know. My brothers play baseball, I did orchestra, I did dance, you know, as a little kid, I did dance, like we did all kinds of things, but you had to take piano um at least up through high school. And so I took piano starting from about age four or five. Um, my dad would do the piano lessons because he is a piano teacher, he has a big piano studio, um, and in addition to his other things, and so he taught us piano, and I have two younger brothers and they had to do piano, and so it was just part of our, you know, everybody practices piano every day, we have the recitals every semester or whatever, you know, that kind of thing, very standard. So we were very, we all grew up very familiar with music. And my mom's like choral music ed side of that was like you gotta be in church choir, which we probably would have been anyway, since we went to church, you know, so much that's just part of it. But um, so we went, we were blessed to be for most of my childhood, we were blessed to be in churches um that had really good children's choir programs and really good youth or youth choir programs. Um and so we learned good singing, you know, early on. We got to be in groups doing singing early on and do a lot of things with that. And for our youth choir, we actually did like tours and things with the the church youth choir. So getting to, you know, look forward to that in the summer, having that, you know, work with a group and then have that build up um into a big tour, you know, like that's really fun, and that kind of inspires your musical journey a little bit, gives you that motivation. Um, but in addition to that, we moved to Mobile, Alabama, and we go to church and everything, we're doing all this kind of stuff, and we're still taking piano from dad. And then there was a teacher that you know worked with my dad's church, like they she would play when they had orchestra, she would play there, and so they got to know her. And my mom's like, Rebecca, do you want to take cello? And I was like, sure. And so I started taking cello lessons about fifth grade, and because I had good piano background, as I'm sure you've uh encountered before, like it was pretty quick to pick up, at least on a beginner level, you know, to to pick up, like I already knew how to read the bass clef, I already knew, you know, how to read rhythm and you know all that kind of stuff. So and so I just dove into it and it and I just loved it. And be probably because it was a little bit different than what my parents did, it kind of became my thing, you know. And so I practiced really hard, I loved it. And once I got into orchestra, I was sort of like, this is the thing, this is the thing that I like to do. And you know, so I started thinking longer term, like, do I want to do this in college? Um, you know, do I want this to be kind of what I do? And the answer became yes, pretty quickly. And so I just, you know, started the whole routine of like practicing multiple hours a day and you know, like working through rep and preparing a college audition and you know, all those things that you do. Um, and so my parents were really supportive of that and really helpful with that. Um, so were my teachers. I had different cello teachers along the way that were super helpful. Um, and I did, you know, as I said, I got into Wheaton. And while I was at Wheaton, like I was like, I'm gonna be an orchestral celloist, like that's the thing, you know, I'm gonna teach college cello and I'm gonna do, you know, that's my goal. But then, and like I practiced and I prepared for that kind of thing. But then somewhere along the way, maybe it was early either sophomore or junior year, I got invited to like show the cello to a music appreciation class, you know. And so, and the teacher of that class was just giving all the instruments, you know, any of this conservatory students that wanted to come bring their instrument, he was like having them come show like a live demonstration. Because you know, music appreciation is tough, you gotta give them interested, and that's one way to do it, bring a live instrument. And so I was like, sure, I'll do, yeah, sign me up, you know. And so I so I went in, and that was my first time standing in front of like a large class of college students as a someone giving information, not just as a student, like in the class. And and of course it was about the cello, so it was stuff I knew, and because it was music appreciation appreciation, the kind of questions they asked were things that I certainly knew the answers to. And so I was like, well, this is fun. Like I like standing in front of class, I like telling things, and then kind of combined with that, sitting in all of the music history lectures that we had to do for our degree, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so interesting! Like, I love these stories, I love finding out why the music sounds the way it does, and you know, why this composer was this way and all this kind of stuff. And so, sort of that combination of things, you know, I started asking myself, okay, do I want to be doing orchestra rehearsals like late at night and doing all these concerts all the time and like having to travel a lot? Um, or am I more interested in like telling these stories and helping people kind of find the stories in the music and making that relatable to people? And so it my ears sort of shifted a little bit that direction. And so when I started looking at grad school stuff, I was like, Yeah, I really see myself doing that more um than I do, you know, being a full-time orchestral cellist. And so I kind of shifted my my goals there a little bit, which doesn't mean that I stopped practicing cello or anything. Like I was pretty hardcore till the end of undergrad. Um and I kept my degree as cello performance, but I took all of the music history that we could take. Like I did all these electives, I did all, I did like German class as elective, like I started preparing, you know, myself to go into a musicology degree, um, even then. And so then when I got to grad school, it was like, yeah, I'm gonna do this, but I still want to play cello. And so I kept that as a I did the Baroque ensemble at FSU the whole time I was there. I did the viol ensemble for most of the time I was there, um, which was super fun. I got to learn some early music instruments that way, which was fantastic. Um, and I played, I became a full-time orchestra member of my church orchestra, and then some of the FSU, like, and my husband and I um were part of like a Bible study of grad students at FSU. Um, and so our little like cohort of music students that were Christians kind of like all got together and did that. And so through that I got to know a lot of the performance degree people, which I might not have gotten to know otherwise, and they tuned in pretty quick to the fact that I was like a decent cellist. I'm not like a, you know, I wasn't like doing my doctorate in cello, but like I could play. And so I started getting gigs, and so I would go gig with the you know, Panama City Pops. I would gig with like the real orchestras. Um, so I got to kind of do that, even though that wasn't like my big goal anymore. It was still like, yay, I did the thing, kind of, you know. And so it's really fun. And I also taught, I had a pretty big cello studio I was teaching. We did all kind of little small jobs through grad school that were music related. So playing for the church orchestra paid a little bit, doing lots of cello teaching paid a little bit. Um, I got to conduct the homeschool orchestra for a like a semester or two. I think I was one of the conductors, um, at least two semesters, so I got to do that. So just like all these little things I wasn't expecting to do musically, but that I got to do anyway because I was sort of open to it and I was in the right place at the right time and um all that kind of stuff. And and again, that's the Lord kind of leading my steps, letting me get to do these really cool things um while pursuing this degree that was maybe not what I had expected to do at first. Um, and so that was all really fun and really exciting and um just a really like rich time of like music making in a lot of different ways, I think. So that was that was really cool. And then now, of course, I still get to do some of that. Now that I have two little girls, it's um not I can't just go randomly do a gig anymore, you know, it's not quite that easy. But um getting to do bison baroque still, playing for that. So when the girls are older, like I'll probably be able to do more of it again. But um, but just being able to keep that up and do it as as needed is is really fun still.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, wow, that that's incredible. You've done so much, and I love hearing just kind of how you can look back now and see how the Lord was leading in all those ways. But it's like you say that you have to almost be open to maybe not looking like what you ex anticipated it to. And so I'm curious, was it ever difficult to give up some of your, you know, the dreams that you maybe thought you had, or or how did the Lord lead you through that? And how might you encourage somebody who's maybe wondering, like, I want to follow you, Lord, but I don't know exactly where you're leading?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, one of the things that was sort of I was disappointed at first was like right when I got to FSU, one of the ways that I was planning to keep up my cello stuff, and you know, think think of this like I'm right out of a performance degree, right? So I'm used to playing all the time, right? And and I had been practicing over the summer because I was planning to audition for the big orchestra at FSU. They have lots of orchestras because they're such a big school, but I was planning to audition for the one that the grad students were in. And I like signed up on the sheet, like I had an audition time and I had prepped the excerpts and I was ready to go. And then I found out that that semester, one of the required meetings for musicology students had changed times and it was at the same time as that rehearsal. And looking back, like if I had thrown enough of a fit, maybe I could have gotten out of those meetings, but it really wasn't advisable for a first-year master's student to get out of, you know, you really needed to go to those. And so it was like, oh no, now I can't be in this orchestra. And so I had to go like scribble my name off the sheet, and I was like really sad because I was like, okay, well, how am I gonna, how am I gonna play cello now? Like, I'm not gonna have any time to do this. That was my way to like keep doing it. But because I was single at that time, I went, I was trying out churches, you know, to see where I was gonna go. And first, the first Baptist church in Tallahassee, at least while I was there, had this thing called the Orchestral Scholars Program. And it was like they had some specific openings because they had an orchestra every week, and so they had some openings where they were like, okay, we'll pay like a college student or grad student to be part of this group, and it'll be like a scholarship for them to help fund their education, and then they can play solos or whatever sometimes too. And so I went up to the director Penny Folsom, um, she's retired now, but and I said, Hey, I know I'm not an undergrad, but I'm interested in this. Are you are you letting grads? And I said, and I'm not performance anymore, but are are you just taking anyone, you know? And she was like, Oh yeah, just come audition. And so I auditioned and I got the cello spot, and I and I did that for like five years of my tra of my graduate school, and so it was not a pro you know professional orchestra um in that sense, but it let me keep playing and it let me play the cello every week, you know, and like make sure that I was still like practicing to some extent, and and it opened some other doors because it meant that I could play solos there. Um, it got me connected with some more of the FSU performance people in various ways. And when Penny decided she wanted to do like a fine arts camp, I was the person she came to, and so I randomly like ran a fine arts camp for a couple of years, which is way outside my training and way outside anything I thought I would ever do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But it was wildly fun and interesting, and we made it work and it was really cool. And so, again, just sort of being willing to try things that were a little bit outside of my original goals and being willing to say yes to things that maybe I wouldn't have thought would be the best fit, but then turned out to be great, um, and just like putting in that time and effort. Um, you know, a lot of times the Lord will will give us these doors, and so it's like you don't necessarily have to go through it, but if you're willing to give it a try, like sometimes really wonderful things can happen with that. And so um, and so I got all these really great resume lines and really great experience um through some of those things because I wasn't able to be in that other big orchestra that probably would have taken too much of the time, you know, for me to do those other things, and so it's like, well, you know, yeah, maybe I missed being in that orchestra, but now I get to do all this other stuff, and then I could focus more on Baroque Cello a little bit in my practice. I could focus on um some of these other things, and so um it wasn't what I thought it would look like at first, but again, it a lot of cool opportunities happened because of that, and um looking back, it's really interesting to see the wide variety of things I ended up doing. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. And of course, now you still are able to do a lot of the mu the playing and the teaching and that sort of thing, but also now being a mom. So I'm just curious how do you navigate life as a full-time mom, but also professor, musician, all the things, and how do you handle just the busyness of that, but also still making sure to do it all well? That's so much. Well, it's kind of like it's kind of day-to-day.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Figure out what is, I mean, always the girls like health and you know, mental wellness and all that, that's always first priority. But figuring out, you know, which days, it's like, okay, which days can I manage to get a little more grading in? Like if they're in a good mood, can I do the grading right now? You know, and they're both very little. So this will change as they get older, I'm sure. But me, you know, me making sure I'm very flexible, like it's okay, I was gonna grade, but you know what, we're having a meltdown, so I'm not gonna grade right now, you know, that kind of thing. Being willing to, you know, work really odd hours. Um, there are things that are set, like my class times are set, so I have a babysitter, you know, during those. Um, but otherwise managing my time really well, so that if it's like this um semester, I have 30 minutes between my classes, that's the way that worked out. And so it's like, okay, I plan stuff for those 30 minutes. It's like, okay, I'm gonna grade those tests or start grading them during that time. I'm gonna have this happen during that time, so that when I am at home with the girls, I'm able to really focus on them as much as possible and not be like having just this scattered, like, oh no, I have to do all these things, which I mean, sometimes that still happens. But for the most part, really trying to manage my time well, really being focused when I am working, being focused and fast as much as I can. Um, you know, making lists, I do a lot of lists. You know, I think being a musician kind of helps because we always have a lot going on as musicians. And so I think that helps my brain like think of it that way. It's like, okay, yeah, like make a list, figure out what what, you know, when you're practicing, it's like, what's the priority for this practice session? Right? It's like my work time, what's the priority to get done? Which emails that do I need to handle right now? Um, you know, and if the girls don't nap, it's like, okay, well, that work time went out the window, so now when is that gonna happen? And like rescheduling it. And I think that's the hardest part for me is like I really like schedules, and so when something happens that changes it, it's like, oh, now when am I gonna do that? It's like, no, don't figure it out. It's like you have to be the flexible one. They are very small, they cannot be as flexible as you can. So just you know, you'll find a time, it'll happen, um, and just figure it out, you know. And so and and also I was talking earlier about saying yes to a lot of things. This is a time in my life where I have to say no to a lot of things, and also being willing to know that that's a season too, and it's okay to say no if I think it's gonna be too much for the girls to handle me being gone for whatever, or um, you know, no, I can't take on that extra class right now because that's like a whole nother hour of them with a babysitter, and they they don't need that right now, you know, that kind of thing. Um, you know, kind of gauging like that as well. Yeah, so I think, you know, trying to stay organized, trying to manage time well, those are my best, my best things that help right now.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think you hit on like two really big things that are important for any musician of like I was taught in school, you've got what's most important, kind of that list, and then there's also though what's also time sensitive. So you figure out what's important and time sensitive, do that first, and then you can kind of work your way down of like what's not time sensitive, you know. And then also another big thing of just being what's hard for a musician is like the self-control to say no. We probably want to say yes to everything, but um that's something that's also unique about being a musician of like you can kind of pick and choose, like yes or no, some of these opportunities. So yeah, that can be hard to navigate for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and also sometimes telling people like, I can't right now but ask me again next year. Like we had uh there was a big Christmas program, I got asked to be like in the orchestra, and it was my daughter was scheduled, like she was due to be born at the end of December, and it was like right before Christmas, and I was like, She's not supposed to be born, but also that's let's not like I'll ask me next year, you know. And it was good because she turns out she was she was born very early, and so it was like that went out of it. So it was like so it was like hopefully they'll ask me again next year and I might be able to do it. But um, but I like to I also like to keep good relationships with people that way, like you know what, I can't do that right now, but ask me again or please keep me on the list or what you know, whatever, because you never know when you will have time to do it or when you would want to do it again in the future. Um, and so that can be a good way to to not just lose hope, like I'll never do it again. It's like no, yeah, that's just not right now, you know. And that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, absolutely. That's that's another good tip there. So awesome. I'd love to transition now to talk about one of your areas of expertise being JS Bach. And so I'm curious, kind of, we've talked about your journey so far, but where along the lines did you say, Oh, I love Bach? And I I'm so passionate about this.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I was hearing a lot of Bach growing up from both my parents. I mean, my dad playing his organ stuff, my mom listening to stuff, you know, obviously. So he was certainly one of the composers I was interested in. And you know, like when you're learning like young piano and and strings stuff, like you have little Bach menuettes and things that you learn. And so I was always like, Oh, I know that composer, like I like Bach, you know. And it's dad's favorite composer, and so I like Bach, you know. But um, but of course, when I got more serious about cello, there's the cello suites, and so I was very much like, these are the best, you know, I gotta play these, these are so cool, right? And I still I still love them, of course. But um, but that was when I started being a little bit more like, okay, maybe Bach's kind of my thing, like I really like playing, like whether or not I play them well, I have no idea, but I like them, you know. And then as I was getting through undergrad, you know, and we're like doing the history sequence, like I was like, yay, it's Bach Day, you know. So I was it was I was always like a fan, you know, I was a big Bach fan for a long time. Yes. Uh and then um, and then like our orchestra played some, I don't even know what it was. It was some arrangement of a Bach orchestral suite, but they had done it for like modern orchestra or something. And um, and the conductor was like cutting um down to be a smaller size, to be like more historically informed. Like it was not historically informed, but it you know, he was he was trying really hard. And I was like, oh, I gotta be in this, like I gotta play on this one, you know. And I fortunately I was high enough up that I that I did. And then we're going through um one of our uh seminars for music history, which you didn't have to take. Maybe you had to take, I don't remember how it worked. It may have been that there you had to take one or something, but I took all of them as much as I could because I knew I wanted to go when I figured out I wanted to go into musicology. And so one of the seminars was Box Seminar. And so our music history teacher, who was just so fabulous, Dr. Jonathan Saylor up at Wheaton, uh oh, I love him so much. But anyway, he, you know, for in front of the big classes, he's very bombastic and getting people interested, and that's what you have to do with those big core classes. But for the seminars, he would sit at the table, and it very much felt like what I would learn was a grad seminar later. Um, and he was quieter and he was more like, we're diving into this, like let's look at the score, let's do this. And so it felt very different. And so that sort of piqued my interest, A, for, you know, okay, is this what music history looks more like in grad school, which yes it was, and then B, like, oh wow, we're like really diving into these. And then that was also the class, and it wasn't even through him so much, it was through one of the student presentations. Um, and the student presented on the passions, and I was like, all right, these are these are good, these are cool. I need to look at these more. And so when I started looking at the passions, um, I I was like, okay, this could take a whole life. This could take my whole life to look at these and to figure these out and to to figure this is like a puzzle. Like, how do I how do I approach these? What are what's going on here? These are huge, like what is this? And so I was like, that's gonna be what I look at in grad school, and and sure enough it was. And so it was kind of the love of that composer and sort of the identifying with that composer in that like my dad's an organist and Bach was an organist, and you know, those kind of things, and then sort of finding these very specific works um that really got me into it. And I'm still trying to figure out those works, it's still a puzzle.
SPEAKER_00:It's still totally okay. You said the passions um really quick. And I I remember when I had music history and I discovered them kind of for the first time, and I remember also being like, oh my goodness, this is incredible. Like, I don't know that I I don't know how I never knew about these, but in case somebody doesn't know about them, can you just give a brief overview? Like, what are the passions?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the Bach Passions are um oratorios, which are big pieces for choir and orchestra or instrumental ensemble, I guess, at the time. Um, and they tell the story of Jesus' crucifixion. And so there's two that we have from Bach that we have the whole thing. We have the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion. And the name of the Passion tells you which gospel he's primarily drawing from for the Rich Tatib. Um, so St. Matthew mostly coming out of the book of Matthew, which is really fun. You can actually open up your Bible and like mostly follow along the Rich Tatib if you really want to. Um, so that's kind of fun. And same thing with St. John that's coming out of John. He played around with a Mark, he played around with a Luke, but we do not have all of either of those for a variety of reasons. There's other scholars who can talk about those fragments and and whatnot. Um, but we have Matthew and John, and so those are what I looked at. Um they're very long, which is typical for Baroque Oratorio. Um if you if you if you take a modern, like historically informed tempo, they tend to come in right under about three hours, um, depending on your conductor, anywhere between two and a half and three, usually, at least for Matthew. John's a little bit shorter. Um, but they're just full of wonderful emotion. They really depict the characters in the story very well. Um you get to hear from you know Jesus' lines just like from in the Bible, like when he sings, you know, On the Cross, My God, why have you forsaken me? Like that's in there, you know, there's all these really poignant moments. Um, and the way he sets it, he has text from the Bible, um, which is the Reg Tati, but then he has these beautiful reflective arias that the soloists sing, which are not really characters in the story at that point. They're sort of from the perspective of maybe an onlooker or a believer, or there's a lot of ways to imagine it. Um, but somebody who's kind of looking at the story and like, how would I feel if this was happening? How is this affecting me? Oh, don't take Jesus away, please don't arrest him, like those kind of things that aren't in the Bible, but it's kind of like how we might respond if we were watching it happen kind of thing. Um, and so we get these gorgeous arias that help us sort of um parse through the story emotionally a little bit, and those texts are coming, um, at least in Matthew, they're coming from um Pickender, who was his librettist, and then in John they're coming from a variety of sources, but um, but he's really and then he has chorales in there, so he has these hymns, these Lutheran hymns, that the congregation maybe. Could have sung along with, but certainly would have known when they heard the choir start singing, they'd be like, Oh, I know this one, or I've heard this one in church before. So it kind of brings them in a little bit more. Like it maybe if their mind had started to wander through all this counterpoint, you know, that can that can happen. Um the chorals kind of bring them back, like, oh wait, I know this one, I could sing this, or I know this text. And so, kind of another layer of um community engagement there, engaging with the congregation, really bringing them into this story because he's trying to have these musical sermons, right? He's making this a sermon. It's got the Bible text, it's got exposition through those arias and through the chorals as well, the chorale texts. Um, and so he's really trying to draw the congregation in. And if they've never heard the crucifixion story, they're gonna hear it now. And if they have heard it, then it's gonna help them walk through it in a new way or a different way. Um, even if you've heard that piece before, like you're not gonna hear it the same way twice. And so, and he, of course, himself did different editions throughout his life, especially of John. We see it go through four different iterations um that are slightly different from each other. Um, and so he's really um trying to preach. It's Bach preaching, and of course, there would have been a sermon in the the service as well, but nobody cares about that. They just care about music. No, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. But the but the music itself does a wonderful job of telling the story. Uh and so um, so we see this. And another thing that I think is really cool too, and this may speak to his faith aspect um when we talk about that in a minute, is in the scores, the presentation scores, like the you know, once he got his got himself got it how he wanted it, you know, and he writes it out again. Um he does the biblical text in red, so it's very much like a red letter Bible. So the stuff that's coming right out of the gospels, if you're looking at the score, you can see because the ink is a different color, um, and then the you know, arias and things are are black, but um, but I think that's really special, so we can get into more about that. But that's what the pieces are, they're telling Jesus' crucifixion story.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, I love it. Wow, it's just it is so deep as you're just describing all of it. Okay, so going back a little bit, could you just give a sky-high view of Bach's life for somebody who maybe doesn't know or knows a little bit, but you know, just a little bit of an overview.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so Bach is, as you may have gathered by now, a um certainly a church musician. Throughout the and he's German, so he's in Germany. He stays in Germany his whole life. He doesn't go super far, he doesn't even go all the way around Germany. He just he's kind of unlike other composers like Handel who travel, like he's he's kind of stuck there. Um so he's um born to a very musical family. The Bach family is, you know, you can trace back generations of musicians. He's certainly the big name one, like he is. Right, of course. We can argue that, but he's the big one. Um so and so he um he's born into this. His parents die when he's pretty young. He goes to live with his one of his older brothers, um, and he at that point he kind of seriously starts his organ lessons and things like that. He's a choir boy as well, so he's getting really good training. Um, and after he sort of graduates from school, you know, choir school, he has several different gigs um as a you know church organist, kind of kind of lower level gigs. He's not like running things necessarily. Um he is writing cantatas and things for church, but he's also writing organ music. He's coming up with different um, you know, compositions and things. Um we see him work for some noblemen as well. He works for a couple of different noblemen and he gets into some trouble with them because he really was not a people pleaser. Uh he wanted the music to be very good. He wanted to write what he wanted to write, um, and he wanted to have the freedom to change jobs if he needed to. And sometimes, you know, the way the noble, what's the word, the nobility worked uh during that time, you know, made some of that not possible. And so he would get himself into trouble sometimes. And um, and so some through some of that, you know, he's like looking for a better job. He gets married, he has a bunch of children while he is away on a trip with one of the one of the noblemen. Um his wife passes away rather unexpectedly, and by the time he gets back, like nobody wrote to him and told him, by the time he gets back, she's already been buried. The children are who knows what he found when he got home. I don't know. But um, but it's very tragic. And so he gets married again fairly quickly. Um, probably because A, she was really pretty, she was a great soprano, and they had a very good rapport, and then B, like he needs somebody for the children. Like the children cannot just be left to their own devices, right? So the older of the Bach sons, for people who care about the Bach family, were from the first wife. So some of the famous ones, WF, C P E, those are with Maria Barber, his first wife. And then he marries Anna Magdalena, and so she, her famous one um would be the young one who went to London. And so, JC. And so, um, but so but she's kind of a mom to all of them in a way because she's their their stepmom, and they're not, you know, super duper old like. But anyway, so he and at that point he's like, I really I've got a lot of kids, I really need a better paying job. So he's like looking for better jobs. And finally he hits on the Leipzig um job where he becomes the Thomas Cantor in Leipzig. And he was not their first choice, he was their third choice. So if you've ever been passed over for a job, please don't feel bad because that was not even the first choice, and look how great he was. So he gets the job in Leipzig, and then he's basically running the music for all of the Lutheran churches. There are two big ones, but he's kind of in charge of the others as well, so he's like making sure everything's working okay at the other ones, too. Um, but his big compositions he's writing for the Lutheran churches there in Leipzig, and that's where he spends the longest part of his life. So from 1723 up to when he dies in 1750, um, he is there in Leipzig doing doing his thing, writing church music. Towards the end, he starts writing some more secular stuff again because he gets to be in charge of the Collegium Musicum, which Telemann had been in charge of as well before. Um, and so we see him doing some secular stuff for them too. Um, but he writes those a lot of those big sacred things like the passions while he's there um for those churches, the Thomas Church and the Nikolai Church um in Leipzig. So that's where he kind of ends up.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Wow, thanks for that. So, you know, he's a church musician, but do we really know like what was his faith like and like his relationship with God? I know that I've I've kind of heard, you know, he seems like a very passionate person. Right. Like, can you just kind of describe what what might have his relationship with God looked like?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's I mean, certainly we can't like ask him, so what I say is based just on evidence that we have. But um, but it looks like it was a very strong faith, and we know that he had a lot of tragedy in his life. He lost his parents very young, he lost his first wife very unexpectedly. Um they had he had, you know, the big the big funny quote about Bach is like, Oh, he had like 20 children. Well, yeah, he did, but a lot of them died when they were very small. Like he didn't he never had 20 children at a time, and like 20 children did not make it to adulthood, you know, like it was very sad. And so he had a lot of a lot of that kind of tragedy. And so I think we see we see a lot of beautiful music coming out of that tragedy, um, and we see him, I think, really looking to the Lord gearing that because we get some really great um, you know, music kind of right after those times, which again, you can't be like, this is why he wrote it, but sometimes you can infer a little bit, and I think and I think that that's that's the case with a lot of that. Some other things that we see from him, um especially when he settles down in Leipzig, he builds, he's he's doing the church music, but he's also in charge of teaching at the Thomas School. And the time, and so he's supposed to teach music and Latin and things there. Um he doesn't really like doing that. Sometimes he farms the job out a little bit, but he lives in the Thomas School, um, in the dorms. He and his family live in the dorms there, and so he has access to their library, and so in addition to all of the stuff they have that he can read and and help with, he has his own personal library, and in his library we find a bunch of theological books. So we find um the we have both Latin and German editions of the Bible. We have the Luther commentary, the Caliph commentary um on Luther's Bible. We have m about 25% of his library is Luther stuff, um, and then a bunch of Luther successor stuff, so a bunch of Lutheran theologians kind of leading up to his day. We see some Pietist stuff as well. Um, his leanings toward Pietism get him into a little bit of trouble sometimes with the Luther Church. Um and he is, you know, reading this, and it's in his personal library, which to us it's like, oh yeah, I bought a book. But back then, like books were even more expensive and even more treasured than they are now. So if he actually owned a book in his library, we he would have read it and at least have been thinking about it. You know, maybe he disagreed with something, I don't know, but it was in his library, so we know he cared about it. The other thing that's really cool is in that Kalog Bible commentary, he wrote notes, so we have his writings, and there's a couple of things he wrote in there, like, oh, this is how worship music is supposed to sound, like by one of the you know, things he's reading. But and so you'll get little expositions like that on a couple of places. But what's really to me speaking to the fact that he read it is a lot of his notations in there are like edits, like he adds a comma or he like fixes a word or something. So is that useful for us knowing his theology? No, but he's reading it if he's adding those things, you know. So to the fact that he read and he cared about it, he like cared about the whole thing. So he's reading the whole thing. Um, and then as I said with the passions, like he's got those red letters in there, which if you think about it, not everybody sees that, right? Really, the only person who's seeing that score is the keyboard player who's leading the thing, so himself or whoever he gives to let perform it. Um, the audience, the congregation, is not seeing that. The most of the musicians are not because they're singing from parts, right? They're not seeing from the big score. So the fact that he took the time to do that was kind of an act of devotion for his own sanctification, um, and also, you know, for that of whoever was going to lead it after him. And for him, too, like he had no idea that he was going to become so famous after he died. Like Telemann was the famous German composer, Handel was the famous, you know, Austrio-German composer. Bach was the famous organist, right? He didn't people and he was old-fashioned. Like by the time we get to his passions and his mass and everything, people are like, that's very broke. Like, we've moved on from that. And he's like, No, I'm still like this. And so he had no idea that we would be performing his passions now. He had no idea. So the fact that he took the time to do that really speaks to me that he cared about it and that it was for his own benefit. Another thing, too, is just the time and care that he took writing them. He has so many wonderful usages of symbolic, like key signatures or numbers or things kind of hiding in the score, lots of gorgeous word painting, which, like honestly, a lot of probably would have been lost on his congregation, right? It's not like he has the niche Baroque loving audience that knows all the stuff. Like, no, these are like people that live in Leipzig. Yeah, they know some music, but they're not gonna catch all that. Just like, I mean, even I'm not gonna catch all that if I'm just listening without looking at a score. So the fact that he really embeds that into not just the passions, but the cantatas and things as well, I think speaks to him really trying to do his best for the Lord, really trying to make his music something that is a spiritual exercise for him. And, you know, for the listeners that can pick up on it, some of the musicians maybe too, um, that are performing it. And also his whole project, he when he gets to Leipzig, like he's gotta, they do in the you know, high Lutheran tradition, they were doing cantatas every week, right, with the sermon, most weeks of the of the church calendar. And so he's having to, he could have just pulled old ones, but he decided, no, like I want to make a new library of these that will last for several years following the liturgical calendar. And so his goal was to do like three years worth of cantatas. Um, we don't have all of those. A lot of these are, and I don't know that he quite finished, but um, a lot of them were lost. Um, but that was his goal. He's like, I'm not just gonna pull old stuff, I'm not just gonna reuse stuff, I'm gonna make new ones, and that's so he's like writing a cantata a week, you know, on average, trying to like get this library built up. Um and so again, that was not necessary, that was not um something that he necessarily had to do um to the extent that he did it, right? So again, I think that speaks to his devotion. Um, the fact that he finished the B minor Mass, right? He he wrote part of the Mass. He was basically looking for an honorary title that would give him more money for his family, basically, by writing that. So he sends um, I think it was just the, I want to say it was just the Curie and the Gloria, but it was it was like the first little part of a mass he had really beautifully written in a presentation format. He sent it off, gets this title. They don't really need a mass, but he finishes it anyway. It's like, okay, why would you write a whole mass? You're Lutheran, like you don't necessarily know, you don't necessarily need this, right? But he finishes it anyway. And so all of these things and um also the use of which it's not exclusive to Bach, but he did it probably the most writing the Yezu Yuva at the beginning of so many scores and writing Solid Dea Gloria at the end of so many scores, even secular scores, like well-tempered clavier has Sol de Gloria at the end of the first book, right? And so just you know, if if it was just on the sacred stuff, it's like maybe this composer is just trying to look churchy. But if it's on the secular stuff too, it's kind of like, alright, well, that says something. Other composers, like Handel did um some of the Sol Dea Gloria too. It's not just Bach, but the fact that Bach is also doing it, I think is another piece of evidence for the fact that he's really um taking this to heart. And then my favorite little fact about this is right at the end of his life, he had eye troubles, right? And so he um that's a whole other story, but anyway, he he's basically blind by the by the time that he dies. And so he's dictating things from his death that he can't really see. And and you can track it too if you look through his manuscripts throughout his life, like his handwriting gets terrible at the end because he just can't see. And so finally, when he's really basically blind, he's just dictating to his students and things to copy for him. And the last piece he writes, or literally right before he dies, is a can is a I think it ends up being a chorale, but it's on this tune that's at your throne I come. And so he knew he was dying, or before your throne I come, something like that is the translation. And so he knew he was dying, and so he was kind of his last little prayer, right? Like, you know, I'm gonna go see God now, right? And so I think that's um speaks to where his heart was there at the very end, too. Um so that's what I think. That's what I think about his faith. I think it was very strong and very deep and really evidenced by the work that he did. He really didn't have to make things as good as he made them. He really could have tried half as hard and it still would have been great music, and but he didn't. He he wanted it to be to the glory of God, he wanted it to be the best that it could be, and so now we have these fantastic pieces that are still performed um in the present.
SPEAKER_00:So wow. That was a lot of very compelling evidence. I love it. There's so much that I want to comment on. I I don't know if I'll be able to remember everything, but I love just the overarching theme of what you're saying of like he did things excellently, and he people may not have even realized it. And I think even today, like so many people might play it and don't realize maybe all the depth behind it, but that like you said, the solo deo gloria, like how it was to the glory of God. Can you just really quick go back over that? The so he wrote JJ and S D G and some of his manuscripts. Can you tell people what that means?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so Yesu Yuva means Jesus help me. Um so kind of a prayer for um like assistance writing, you know, the best you can write. And then Sole de Glory means to God alone be the glory. And so that's kind of you know, at the end of a piece or the end of a section, I guess, in the case of Will Temper Clavier, um, being like this was for you, this was for for God. Um and that's and it's also one of the Lutheran tenets, he has all the solas, you know, and so that's one of the solas of the Lutheran tradition is the Solidia Glory and soulbox pulling from that tradition, um, which is his his faith tradition, um to um tie it to Luther, but also to to give the glory to God through that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's incredible. And I just think that's so cool that like one of the most renowned composers of all time, you know, maybe not during his time, but everybody knows him now, and um and yet he's not like he's still pointing that upward, you know, like he's not doing things just to earn necessarily success during his day, but um still doing things excellently for the glory of God. And as musicians, sometimes we can get caught in the trap of wanting to do things well so that people will be impressed, or we can, you know, create a name for ourselves, but um how it's really not about that, and so I'm thankful for Bach's example in that. Um I think that another thing is that people will say hit like listening to his music or playing his music is such a like spiritual experience. I don't know if you found people saying that, but like even yeah, like people who aren't Christians, can you speak to that? Like, why is he so popular now and with maybe even a non-Christian audience?
SPEAKER_01:So that was a lot of what I did my dissertation on, actually. Um, and uh I was looking at different Bach festivals and how those work, but part of what I was asking was about the passions. I would go and ask performers and conductors and audience members, okay, so like these are really Christian pieces, and they're like kind of the most Christian because it's like Jesus on the cross. It's not just like, oh, here's the Bible story, like it's kind of the story, you know what I mean? And it's perfect, like it's graphic, it's bloody, it's you know, like so. If you, you know, you've got like crowds screaming, crucify him, right? So if you and I couldn't be like, are you a Christian or not? But kind of through the conversation, usually people would tell me if they were or if they were something else. And I had all kind of, I had agnostics, I had atheists, I had people from other faiths, I had Christians, and I had a Quaker, like they were all kind of cool people. And the overarching sense was like, especially, you know, if you weren't Christian, so if you're kind of coming at it from like a different viewpoint that really doesn't care about that story, was that Bach just writes in such a human way. Like, even if you don't care that Jesus was crucified, even if you don't care that he's on the cross and dying and all that kind of stuff, the characters in the story are written from such a human perspective. The way he does the music really empathizes with people, it it shows love, it shows, you know, repentance, all this kind of stuff. And so I would have people say things like, Well, I may not care about this love aria from a God perspective, but like my mom sacrificed for me when I was little, she loved me, she showed me what that looked like, so I think about her when I'm singing it. And so, even though it's not the same, perhaps, as what Bach was intending, it's like connecting with them on some human level. And that's kind of the first step towards being able to accept that story, I think, is just getting your foot in the door, which means that Bach is really still succeeding at his goal of telling the crucifixion story to people, of evangelizing people, even if they're not really coming into it wanting to be evangelized or or anything like that. They're still kind of dealing with the story, finding a way to deal with it on whatever level, um, usually a very human, you know, emotion kind of level. Um, and the great music obviously helps with that. But just um, you know, kind of finding their way through that. And there were so many people who were like, yeah, I'm not a Christian, but this music kind of makes me want to be a Christian, or I'm like a Christian for those three hours that I'm singing it, which I mean, theologically that doesn't make any sense. But you know, the idea of that, like just kind of buying into the story, kind of wanting the story to be real if you didn't believe it, you know, and wanting to to find what Bach is trying to say, you know, how is he showing Peter's remorse? Like, can we tie into that? How is he showing um this love at the end of a story that ends very sadly because we end with Jesus dead? Like, we don't do Easter, we wait for Easter. So, like, how do we deal with that grief? You know, and so people would be like, Oh, I had a friend who died, and I think about them with the grief. And so Bach's really managing through this great music and his text setting and all of that to kind of reach those emotions and reach those places where maybe a seed of faith can be planted. And so I think that that's really important um in our modern day. Because there are people who have a lot of issues with things in the passion sometimes, and so the fact that they still are willing to sing them and deal with them um speaks a lot to Bach's ability to really get at things, to get at that human element, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I know that that was kind of all part of your research, right? And you were you were talking about like creating almost giving people more of an opportunity, like it's almost a conversation starter, these passions of like, hey, how are you like how are you taking this? You know, can you speak to did did you have some of those people that were like, wait, actually, maybe this is real, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Like Well, I didn't I mean not through our conversation, but I had people who I had I had at least two people who described that happening to someone else. And so they would say they would say, you know, like, oh my teacher, you know, was very much agnostic, and then kind of through box music because he was in this group singing Bach all the time or whatever, um, he kind of came back to the faith. And you know, so it's like it was his way. And one of them said, if I ever make it back to the faith, it's going to be because of singing this music. So I didn't see all the fruits of that, but I saw where it could happen, you know, where it kind of could happen. Um, and so I think um, I mean, I hope it happens, I hope it happens for people, but it was just really interesting hearing all those different perspectives because I didn't know what I was gonna find, I was just asking the question, you know? Yeah. So it was really fascinating to see how much people loved it and were willing to sing it. You know, these really, you know, these choruses are so scary where they're shouting crucify, like Bach paints them, you know, as very scary like choruses and things. Um, and so it's like, yeah, I'm willing to sing that because it makes me think of this, or it makes you know me connect with this idea. And it's like, all right, well, maybe that's not what Bach was going for, but it kind of gets you to the place, you know, it gets you there. Um so I there's a lot to unpack there.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, I think yes. So I'm curious your reaction to like so many people love Bach as we're talking, but again, sometimes the faith aspect, it's like, well, maybe it's uncomfortable, so we'll just leave it out, or even in like my music history experience where I was at a Christian college, I and maybe it was just because there wasn't time for everything, but it felt really like, oh, I don't know that we really touched it much at all, you know, like the whole him being a composer and a Christian and those two combined. And so I don't know, what's your response to that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'd like I'd like to think, and hopefully it is, just that a lot of times there's just not time because especially in a big music history sequence, like you're going really fast, there's not time to do deep dives on very much at all. Um, and some people may want to spend more time, you know, depending on the pieces you kind of use as like the representative piece for the composer or whatever, they might want to do something more secular, like well-tempered clavier or the Brandenburg concertos, or you know, and if you just teach those, I can see how it would be very easy to just be like, here's Bach, he's German, here's this piece for ensemble, you know, like you can skim over all that. And you have to with a lot of composers when you're going so quickly. It's really seminars where you can do those deeper dives. Um but for me, like especially if you're teaching a cantata, which a lot of the music history textbooks do show the cut, you know, they show at least one cantata. Um, a lot of the anthologies do because it's just such a good example of cantatas, and you can do chorale cantatas, and that teaches things um about, you know, that it's too much to get into, but anyway. Um but there there's lots of examples of using cantatas um in the textbooks and things. And so if you're gonna do that, it seems to me that you should at least reference the fact that, like, yeah, he was working at a church, he was a Christian composer. You know, like I think that that's easy enough to do. Um, but maybe people feel like there's just not enough time to get into it or that it would take um too much of a deep dive. Maybe there are some cases where people don't want to deal with it, I don't know. Um, but I think we have enough evidence that he was Christian, that it's something you could certainly talk about and and could spend a lot of time on, as we're doing right now, um, to really do that. And I like to do that with my classes as much as I can. I because Bach's my favorite, you know, we do an extra, we we I carve out a day where we can talk about passions and things, so we certainly talk about it there. But um, but you know, if you're like a random Schubert scholar and you're just glossing over the Baroque because there's just not a lot of time, like I get it, I get it. I'm not judging that necessarily, but um but it does seem like a very important aspect of the composer's life. So if you are doing big bios of everybody, um, then I think that should be part of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I was gonna ask, how do you how do you handle that in your classrooms? I know you're out of Christian school, let's go see more of it. But like, yeah, what does that look like for you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so for me, like I'm very comfortable talking about it, and we have a little bit more time with Bach because I make sure we have an extra day to talk about the passions. Um and so on Passion Days, I I kind of set it on those days because I know that we'll have time there. Um but so yeah, we talk about like he was a Christian, here's a lot of the ways that he's kind of putting that into the the passions and everything. Um and if I ever do a Bach seminar, that certainly will be a big part of it. Um But yeah, like when when you had talked about that as a question, I was thinking to myself, like, do I do that with other composers though? Like, do I get into like Beethoven's faith and stuff? Like, kind of no, but at the same time, I don't know that faith was as, and I somebody's probably gonna yell at me for this, but I don't know if faith was quite as integral for some of the other composers, like you know, Beethoven or Mozart. Like, I don't know that it was playing as daily a role in their life as we see it with Bach. And some of that is because of where Bach worked, like he is working for the church, so like some of that's gonna happen as he's writing for church. But um, but yeah, I think for Bach, like it's certainly something to talk about and that I like to talk about. And I'm trying to remember when I taught um as a graduate assistant at FSU, like it certainly still came up, like I still brought it up. Um so and I mean it's I don't think people react badly to it because it's just a fact, it's not I'm not pushing that on them, it's just that's how Bach was, it's just the truth. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and then I know that a lot of your research is regarding the passions, but are there other works that he's done that you feel like you can see his faith in, or what is that like?
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, well, certainly the cantatas, absolutely, and even even and I mean there's a lot of like organ chorale preludes where he's basing um the piece on, you know, like a Lutheran chorale, and so that's very much you know, Lutheran um theology embedded into a musical number for just for an instrument, so that's kind of fun. Um but I think I mean I think it's just hearing how beautifully well he did everything, you know, even in things like the cello suites to me they just feel very much divinely inspired. Um but that's also I'm a little bit uh biased there, but but certainly in the cantanas, um and even the secular stuff, like you'll see, you know, you'll see just his rational working out of a fugue, you know, or things like that where you can really see him using the mind that God gave him and and doing it to the best of his ability, you know, like really figuring I'm fascinated by fugue. So, like, you know, really figuring out all those subjects and answers and lining it up and making it really cool, and and again, like working it out, even with things like the art of fugue, which came right at the end of his life, and that certainly wasn't for church, that was like a practicing counterpoint, you know. Um but again, just kind of doing it to the best of his ability, way beyond what anybody asked for. I don't know that anybody wanted the art of the fugue. Like, I don't know that that was something people were asking for, you know, they were kind of over fugue by then, they had moved on to the Enlightenment, and um, and that's you know, classical style. But he's like, no, like I'm gonna do this to the best of my ability. I'm gonna take fugue and counterpoint like as far as I can take it. And I think that speaks to maybe a little bit of obsession, but also but also to doing something like to the best and the farthest you can take it, which I think is is something that you know as a Christian that we we see um and we feel like we're called to to do our best and to work, you know, and and take things to the best that we can make them.
SPEAKER_00:So absolutely, as musicians, like doing things skillfully and excellently for the glory of God. And although again, just remembering like the Bach we know now is probably just so much different of like back then of he was like humble, of meaning like he wasn't this celebrity back then, you know. And so it's just remembering he was doing things excellently, even if it wasn't maybe appreciated in its day. But I think today, would you agree that like so many people just attribute his excellence just to Bach the man and you know, and they're kind of missing that, like, oh, like it's a gift from the Lord, or you know, like those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I think too, because like you know, he wrote Solely Dead of Gloria, but like we don't really have a lot of quotes where he's like, I'm getting my music from the Lord. Like we don't really have a quote, you know, and so I think it's easy to be like, oh, he was just this, you know, genius who was really good at count, you know, to attribute it as you say, all to him. But I don't think that he would have agreed with that. Like I think he would have, you know, pointed to the Lord and said, like, my talent is coming from here, and um, which again, you know, that's a little bit of conjecture on my part. But I think that's how I I read a lot of what he does is like that he would have that he would have said, Yeah, I'm good at counterpoint, yeah, I'm good at playing the organ, but you know, that comes from that ultimately, you know, comes from God, and that's why he's giving it back to God. That's why he's doing the Solid Gloria thing. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, there's a whole like there's you know, there's definitely a Bach cult that goes around, you know, where they're very much and it's funny because the musicologists don't really like that either because it's too hagiographical, it's too much like Bach was perfect, and it's like, no, he wasn't, you know, like he was a person. Um, but you know, you can fall into all those traps, certainly.
SPEAKER_00:But yes, yes. Okay, my second to last question I'm asking just purely out of curiosity, because sometimes you know, I've ha obviously the for violin, there's the sonatas and partitas. And um playing those growing up, like I I think I was always so intimidated because it felt like everybody I was playing for had a very specific way they wanted it to be played. And it was like kind of like, okay, I just don't even and and all the opinions are different though. And so it's in terms of interpreting Bach and that sort of thing, do you take the more historic or do you like all those sorts of things? Do you have any thoughts on that? Like, should you say true or because I it takes almost for me sometimes it makes it more stressful to play when I'm just like I don't know, I I'm trying to do what you say, you know, everybody's got a different opinion.
SPEAKER_01:So like as a teacher and a and a researcher, I say I think you need to know what the options are. So, like if you were taking a cello lesson on a box cello suite with me or studying it in my class or something, I would make you listen to a lot of different kinds of recordings. I would make you listen to somebody on a Baroque cello, I would make you listen to Yo-Yo Ma who has a more romantic interpretation. You know, like find as many different like legit looking things on YouTube that aren't legit. But you know, listen to as many things as you can, which is good advice for any new piece you're studying. Yeah, but and then figure out what works for you. Because all of it is legit at some point, right? Like historically informed practice, that's legit because we're trying to sound like maybe Bach would have heard it, maybe we hope. We don't know. There's no recordings of that, so we're doing our best, but who knows, right? And it's still it's still new music in that sense when you do historically informed practice. But then there's this whole like Bach revival in the 19th century where they're taking slow tempos and they're doing more slurred boeings and all this kind of stuff. And so that's kind of authentic for that time, right? And so if you like that sound better, not necessarily a problem as long as you are being consistent. Consistent and you have a vision, because as you know, I'm sure as a violinist, like half the battle is you being confident in your interpretation. And if you're confident in your interpretation, somebody might not like your interpretation. They might be like, that's not historically accurate enough, or like, oh, that's too historically, you know, they might not like. But then they're just arguing with an interpretation because you've sold what you think is the best. And that's fine if they don't like it. You know, you don't, you're not gonna please everybody anyway. So I think if a student is wanting to do a lot of slurred bowings on a box cello suite, maybe that's not my favorite way of doing it, but if that's what speaks to them, and if they're doing it playing it well, like it still has to sound good. So, you know, as long as they're playing it well, then that's okay with me. Like maybe I'll have them try something else just to try it. But um, but if at the end of the day that's what speaks to them, then fine. Now, if we're doing like Baroque ensemble, like trying to sound historically informed, that's a different story, because then we sort of have goals with that. Um but if it's like a solo piece or an ensemble piece that's you know outside of that sort of realm that you're just wanting to try out, like, yeah, I think it's fine to do different interpretations. You just need to, you know, be consistent and figure out what your goal is.
SPEAKER_00:Um Yes, it almost feels like now, like I've I've never I've always just there's been an extra level of stress, I feel like, playing some of those Bach pieces. And um, but now being post-college, I I've been like playing the Chicone again, and I'm like, oh, I can just kind of play it like how I want, and now I'm kind of understanding, like, whoa, this is act I I can understand where it's like wow, this is this must just be from God because it's like so like it is it's so special. So um yeah, I love I love what you're saying there and having a little bit of freedom to just have an interpretation and stick with it. So awesome. Well, thank you so much, Rebecca. I have just one more question for you, and it's just how can we as Christian classical musicians maybe learn from or be encouraged by Bach's example of being the same, a Christian classical musician or composer?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think just remembering that at the end of the day, you know, it is, or at least it should be, to the glory of God. And so if you are struggling because it's something's hard to practice or you're just not getting it right, like hopefully you're able to work through that. But at the end of the day, as long as you're doing your best, you are trying to glorify God through what you're doing, I think that's the most important thing. Because with Bach, like we have all these fantastic recordings of his music now. Things like the passions honestly probably didn't sound the best for him because he's working with little choir boys, he's working with musicians that are traveling maybe or maybe didn't practice their music or whatever. Like, and at one point he got frustrated and didn't even want to do them. That's a whole other story. But anyway, so I think even if things don't turn out exactly like you want, even if you, you know, have a mess up in a performance or you it just wasn't the way you wanted it to go, or something like as long as your heart is in the right place and as long as you've done your best, like leading up to that, like if you didn't practice, then it's a problem. But you know, as long as you've like done your work and you do your best, then that's all you can do. And I think God is glorified through that. Um, as long as we are, you know, putting him at the center and really doing our best as part of that. You know, I think that's important is that the practice and the technical training and the learning is glorifying to God, and that's part of how we glorify him through performance is by preparing well, which I think is something Bach certainly did. So um, yeah, so that's what that's what I think. It's just what makes him so special to me anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Oh my goodness. Wow. Well, thank you seriously so much for coming, spending the time to have this conversation with me and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge. It's just incredible. Well, thanks for having me. So thank you so much for spending part of your day with me today. Check out the description for discussion questions that you can reflect on by yourself or with a group. We actually have a Facebook page that you can join where we talk about these discussion questions. We answer them and we can encourage and equip one another as we walk this road of being a Christian in the classical music world together. Please feel free to leave us a five star review if you like this episode, and I will see you next Monday.