Today's battle between musician and king is one of the more intriguing pairings of Lent Madness 2014. While on seemingly disparate paths, both J.S. Bach and Alfred the Great were fighters. Well, Bach once tangled with a bassoonist and Alfred fought Vikings but you get the point. However this match-up turns out, we know Bach will remain victorious in one category: children sired. He famously fathered 20 children while Alfred had a mere quarter of this number.
In yesterday's neck-and-neck race between James Holly and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet eked out a victory 51% to 49%. She'll go on to face Alcuin of York in the Round of the Saintly Sixteen.
In the same way it's never too late in Lent to begin a Lenten discipline, it's never too late to join in Lent Madness! If you're just checking out this fun, informative way to learn about some amazing people and grow your faith, click here to watch our brief Voting 101 video. We also have some general information for those new to Lent Madness here.
If you haven't liked us on Facebook or followed us on Twitter, you're missing some supplemental conversation. Granted there's plenty of that among the hundreds of comments that follow each match-up but some people just can't get enough of the Madness!
Well, it's been a wonderful, wacky, heart-pounding first full week of Lent Madness 2014. Yesterday marked our second 1% margin of victory this week (see Antony of Egypt vs. Mary of Egypt). Yowza! The Supreme Executive Committee authorizes you to take a deep cleansing breath this weekend and then get ready for our next match-up on Monday morning as Lydia tangles with Moses the Black.
J.S. Bach
For someone who was orphaned at age nine and never traveled farther than 225 miles from his birthplace, Johann Sebastian Bach left a legacy to the world of music much grander than his circumstances might suggest. Born in 1685, the eighth child of a musical family in Eisenach, Germany, Bach studied organ and voice. He was known for his stellar soprano voice. After the loss of his parents who died just months apart, he lived with his older brother, Johann Christoph, an organist who likely continued Bach’s training and introduced him to contemporary music.
Bach’s first real job as an organist came at the age of eighteen when he was hired in Arnstadt, a city in central Germany. Over the next several years, as he moved to progressively larger and more prestigious positions, he began composing in earnest. At age 22 he married his first wife, Maria Barbara, and rather famously, engaged in a street fight with a bassoonist.
After stints in Weimar and Köthen as Kapellmeister (musicmaker), Bach landed in Leipzig in 1723 as Thomaskantor, or director of music, a post he held for twenty-seven years until his death. During this period, he composed more than 300 sacred cantatas that correspond to the weekly lectionary readings. In addition, he continued composing the large-scale orchestral works for which he is well known: the St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion for Good Friday, the Mass in B Minor, the Brandenburg Concerti, and hundreds of other works. A catalog of his work created in 1950 lists some 1,127 surviving pieces; many more compositions were lost over the years.
In Bach’s day, the church was the only place an accomplished musician could make a living for himself and his family. And Bach required a substantial living: between his two wives (the second was the much-younger, highly gifted soprano Anna Magdalena) he fathered twenty children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. However, his deep devotion to the Christian faith was evident: he not only composed the sacred works but also taught Luther’s Small Catechism classes while at Leipzig. No one of his stature would have been forced to teach Sunday School.
J.S. Bach died at age 65 in Leipzig. He kept composing until the very end, despite contending with blindness for many years. His deep dedication to his craft resulted in some of the most beautifully complex music humankind has ever created. Certain of Bach’s pieces are the musical equivalent of a gothic cathedral. They make our hearts soar toward God.
Collect for J.S. Bach
Almighty God, beautiful in majesty and majestic in holiness, who teaches us in Holy Scripture to sing your praises and who gave your musicians Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel and Henry Purcell grace to show forth your glory in their music: Be with all those who write or make music for your people, that we on earth may glimpse your beauty and know the inexhaustible riches of your new creation in Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Heidi Shott
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great united the kingdom of England and was its first great moral leader. Born around 849, he was sent to Rome at the age of four, where some sources say he was confirmed and anointed king by Pope Leo IV.
This was a trifle premature, since Alfred had three older brothers, one of whom deposed his father shortly after they returned home to England. Until Alfred came of age, the kingdom was divided between his brothers, Aethelbald, Aethelred, and Aethelbert.
During this period, Alfred fought alongside his brother, Aethelred; first, against the “Great Heathen Army,” led by Ivar the Boneless, then against the invading Danish—also known as the Viking—army. This second battle did not go well, at least for Aethelred. He died, and Alfred became the new king in 871.
This was less impressive than it sounds. The Vikings had conquered most of England, but by 880, Alfred had managed to push them back out, and for the first time in history, unite England under a single ruler.
Alfred then set about reforming legal practices throughout the land. He issued a new legal code to standardize the laws throughout all England. This was called the Doom Book, which took inspiration from the Ten Commandments and the gospel’s call for mercy and combined them into a comprehensive system that meted out fines and payments instead of violence.
Alfred also saw it as his job to increase education and religious piety. So he began a court school to improve his own children’s learning as well as issued a decree that all primary education occur in English. To aid this cause, he commissioned the translation of numerous books into English, including the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. Alfred also translated several books into English himself, including the first fifty Psalms and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy.
Alfred believed it was his duty to care for both the physical and spiritual well-being of his people, and tried, throughout his reign, to do both equally. He died in October of 899. He is the only English monarch to be (officially) called “the Great.”
Collect for Alfred the Great
O Sovereign Lord, who brought your servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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246 comments on “J.S. Bach vs. Alfred the Great”
Still not getting your emails daily despite signing up. AAAAARRRGGGG!
Is no one on the SEC getting my emails to correct this discouraging and lenten discipline disturbing problem!!?? I can't see vote totals or comments as a result and must navigate to the home page every day in order to vote. Is it even possible to add my email to the daily sendout??? Please, be saintly and do so.... pretty purple please.
I've been going to the website every day. It's really not that hard, and you'll save yourself from the agony this seems to be causing you. It's supposed to be fun, right?
Unfortunately I missed the last few challenges due to legal work and have tried to catch up. Consistently each session is wonderful. I wished to vote for James Holly but missed it. Today I joined the chorus to vote for Bach because I used to be a concert program boy in my youth and I have an aversion to kings.
I can't resist this joke, a favorite among musicians: Question: What's the difference between a classically-trained musician and a terrorist? Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist. (Disclosure: I'm a classically-trained musician.)
Susan Fiore: LOL, only a musician could have come up with that one!
One of my favorites: O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (O Sacred Head Now Wounded) also from Bach's St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 and appropriate for Lent! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9yp-sVrOjo
Yes, you're so right! I'm not savvy about these things, or I'd provide the link, but there's a beautiful version on YouTube by a solo guitarist--Kevin Somebody--that just wrings out my heart. It helps to have those lyrics in my head, too.
Prequel to The Sound of Music?
Wow, excellent!!
Perhaps you have never heard a good organ or organist -- they aren't all created equal, you know . . .
There's an alternative version in Episcopal liturgical circles where the difference is between a liturgist and a terrorist. Same answer.
And if you want to listen in English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2qt2d-k2_o
Hi Phil, I agree! The choir I am part of did this piece a while back and it was hard to do around the lump in my throat ! SDG! Now and forever, amen
Madeleine: One of these days I am going to take Bach's arrangement of O Sacred Head Now Wounded and do it as a baritone solo, but it won't be easy because it also leaves me with a lump in my throat -- and I have been singing in church since I was a little boy! And I only hope I can do it justice when I do!
Madeleine: I have a hard time singing O Sacred Head Now Wounded too!
My first music theory teacher explained that it was J.S. Bach that really figured out the chromatic scale as we know it, and found that music written in different keys sounded different and wonderful. His absolutely masterful work, The Well-Tempered Clavier, was written to show each key's uniqueness. It is a prelude and fugue in every possible key, and as reported by the Carnegie Foundation, " For music theorists and composers, the Well-Tempered Clavier is a feast of tools and techniques, a paradise of inversion, augmentation, and every other contrapuntal device. It represents the summa of Baroque technique, not heard with such clarity or consistency before, and seldom since."
Then again if all he ever written was "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" he would have gotten my vote.
I voted for Alfred, for education, justice and faithful service to the greater good. Without the stability that Alfred and others who followed him there would be no Bach. And Alfred also invented a clock candle which is pretty good
God gave us music so we could pray without words. So all music, not necessarily sacred like much of Bach's, is for me a pathway to God. I vote for Bach! But a king and a musician are an odd pairing. So many of the pairs this week seem to be trying to compare apples and oranges or, in the case of some, apples and coconuts!
Voting for the man who said, "the aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
Alas, these early match-ups are becoming increasingly discouraging for me. The good that I take from this madness is the wonderful extra information provided in the comments that people share. But my voting? I don't believe one single saint that I voted for has won yet. Before this 40 day electronic exercise I had followed the saints in my daily readings, Lesser Feasts and Fasts now through Holy Women, Holy Men. Therefore, I was glad to see Tim's reply about where we get the Lent Madness saints from because for days I have been wondering where did they get Christina the Astonishing!
From Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CDBcr5cpdQ
I don't know how many people Alfred is converting today, but Bach is still converting people with his transcendent music. I know -- I am one of them.
It really is a privilege to read through this interesting discussion and reflect on e very different merits of these two men and so what it means to be a saint. Music is incredibly important to me and I have sung all my life. But I'm not convinced by the "JSB's music is obviously inspired" line of argument because I would have to say the same about, say Verdi or Brahms requiems, Handels Messiah or Mozarts Ave verum corpus" and so many more. But Alfred, he is the founder of a nation and admired not just for his capability as a war leader but also for the principles on which he sought to found that nation. So it's Alfred
The only down side I can see with this very educational tool during Lent is when people resort to name calling - accusing people of being ignorant just because they have a different view point or don't view all the facts in the same way. How sad for them.
Of course, it's JSB! I'm the one whose male dachshund was named (AKC approved) Johann Sebastian Bachshund II! I'm not sure my vote counted (are the gremlins still active?), but no one who made it thru 3 years of college music theory can abandon Sir. Johann who clearly didn't spend ALL his time on the organ bench. Perhaps one of his wives accompanied him in walking all the way to hear Buxtahude!
Let's hear it for Bach!
Today's saintly selection tends to highlight the genius gene of these extraordinary people! A few years ago, my husband & I sang, with 175 other people, the Bach B Minor Mass. A wonder-full experience!
Alfred truly deserved "the Great" title since he established so much----the shire system for civil order and military defense against the invaders. Alfred transitioned from Danelaw to English home-grown law. Some of his ideas survive today in Britian----and elsewhere with local modifications. Both saints are wonderful; many books have been written about their accomplishments. I'm voting for Alfred the Great. So enjoying this discussion today & making notes of books to read later, maybe.