The idea is God’s. The leading role is Christ’s. The supporting cast is all of humanity. The text is Martin Luther’s. The music is Bach’s. The epistle is 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is […]
Hendrik Slegtenhorst On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach – Trinity I-XXVII
J.S. Bach, Cantata 70, at Trinity XXVI – The Rewards of Good and Evil
The epistle (2 Peter 3:3-13) describes the second coming of Christ, who, after resurrection from crucifixion, creates the second coming of a new world, the first having been lost in the great flood; and the coming of the new world will be in the fire of the day of judgment in which the unrepentant and […]
J.S. Bach, Cantata 90, at Trinity XXV – Desolation of the Last Judgment
The gospel is Matthew 24:15-28. Destruction and tribulation will arrive at the end of time, and when they and it are at your doorstep, get out of town, especially Jerusalem, with what’s on your back, head for the mountains, and once you’re sure this isn’t the usual distress from war-mongering, and you’re certain the big […]
Mahler and Freud Meet in Leiden – Of the Pilgrimage of Life
The subject of Mahler and Freud Meet in Leiden, a book of poetry, is the contract life imposes on a human being as the fundamental condition of its existence. It is explored as the unstated, never negotiated covenant between existence and life; that is, the conditional situation that existence provides to those that live within it, and […]